Eastern Sierra & Black Rock Oct-2011 of MarkBC

[Lighthawk]

Nice report, Mark! I like the mapping you provide so we can follow along.
We drove past Masonic Rd. on Sunday, while heading down to the Nevada side of the East Walker.
I'd like to explore the Bodie Hills and Aurora Canyon too.

You've got some great stuff from Upper Summer Meadows too. I know the challenge of selecting your favorite shot, when there are so many photogenic images. Guess we're just fillin' up DD's hard drive up there in cyberspace.

Enjoy the rest of your trip!

 

[DirtyDog]

Excellent stuff mark looking forward to more.

 

[Ted]

Mark,

Wow! Loving the photos. I really like how you see the colors continue up the hillsides far beyond the trees in the foreground.

Thanks for the map. Though the colors will be gone, we are trying to figure out what we want to do over the T-day weekend and that may just do it.

 

[MarkBC]

Thanks, but encouraging me leads me to add one more photo of the glory of Upper Summers Meadows:

 

[MarkBC]

Lazy days...
So...I camped in this spot I like on the SSE side of Mono Lake, at the northern edge of a huge stand of Jeffrey Pines. I didn't do much for 2 nights and a day...didn't even take many photos. I've camped at this spot 3 times before, and I just relaxed this time. On my visit here in July -- when it was hot -- I camped in the shade between (under) these two big Jeffrey Pines.

Then I left Mono and drove south a bit to Mammoth Lakes (the town) to buy some groceries. This was my first ever time to the Mammoth area...and I didn't visit any of the natural areas -- just Von's. Another time...
After stocking up, I headed back north and turned off 395 to drive the June Lake Loop, which was another first, and it was very scenic.
The direction of the afternoon light was not ideal for photos, but I stopped at Silver Lake and took in the view anyway. I need to come back here and spend some time.

I spent the night back at my friend's house in Bridgeport. While there I received communications from Lighthawk via text confirming our plan to meet Friday morning in Bridgeport.

 

[MarkBC]

Lundy Canyon

After a late breakfast with the Lighthawks at Hays Street Cafe (another first for me) we decided to check out Lundy Canyon, which feeds into the Mono Basin at the north end of the Lake.
Lundy Canyon is one of those places, this time of year anyway, that's so photogenic that as long as you know how to use a camera -- any camera -- you'll probably get some attractive photos.
The drive up the canyon is mosty paved, but turns to dirt -- narrow dirt -- past the resort. It was surprisingly busy for a Friday...a lot of people seemed to be there specifically for photography of the fall color in this beautiful spot.
At the end of the road is a trailhead, and I think I got the last parking spot -- at least, the last spot big enough to fit a full-size truck without blocking the road. Wonder what it was like on Saturday!?

Beaver ponds are a major contributor to water-based photogenicity here...and then there were the yellow aspens, of course.

One kinda funny thing: At the Cafe that morning I made the statement that I'd gotten so many photos of fall color in Upper Summer Meadows (the mother lode of fall color in the area), that getting more yellow-dominated photos wasn't a priority for me.
Ummm...I guess I mispoke a bit...so once again I've edited my faves down to too many.

A very-well-constructed classic beaver dam:

The pond behind the classic beaver dam even has a classic domed beaver lodge out in the middle:

There's a very nice waterfall in the middle of this cascade of color:

Most of the aspen turn yellow, then brown, but a few develop a red color:

A quiet oxbow of the creek in the forest was covered with leaves:

So many leaves in this forest stream that they got jammed up:

We didn't go quite to the end of the canyon, but close enough...and we wanted to have lunch in a nice spot, so this was our turn-around/lunch spot:

Then we hiked out back to our rigs, enjoying the view looking down-canyon.

It was late-afternoon, and we needed to get over to the agreed spot on Green Creek where we planned to meet the ski3pins, and we wanted to be able to pick out the spot in daylight.

 

[MarkBC]

I made a map to show 3 of the places I went in the area south of Bridgeport:
Upper Summers Meadows
Green Creek
Lundy Canyon

 

[MarkBC]

We (Lighthawks and I) drove up the Green Creek Road (west off 395 a couple miles south of Bridgeport) and navigated to the coordinates that ski3pin had suggested for a good campsite -- we found one -- big and flat:

Notice the big ole lateral moraine on the other side of the creek...there's one behind me, too, on this side of the creek.

Ski3pins showed up after dark, and we chatted around the campfire.
It got down to 24° by morning...my Wave 6, on low -- without Reflectix in place, kept the interior low at 45°.

As we all drove back down/out the road that morning I stopped and shot this panorama:

Eventually, I decided that I wanted to go my own way. I wasn't sure where exactly, but I'd planned to spend a couple/few days in the White Mts, so I was definitely headed south.

 

[MarkBC]

After saying goodbyes to the ski3pins and Lighthawks I headed south...but where, exactly did I want to go? All the way up into the White Mts today? Or maybe someplace more-or-less south but some place new?

I decided to check out the area east of Mono Craters, southeast of Mono Lake, along CA 120. I'd driven through here a couple of times, and it looked like cool, middle-of-nowhere, wild county, but I'd never stopped.
I like big views for my campsite, if possible, and I saw that "Sagehen Peak", just 4 miles south of 120, seemed to have a road to the top of its 9180-foot summit.



It took 4-low-range and a willingness to let my truck and camper be caressed by mountain mahogany, but I got this big-360°-view spot!
This view is from the pointy-rocky-pinnacle summit, looking southeast towards the White Mountains:

This view is from inside my camper, viewing early morning.

A great high-point like this peak is just begging for a 360° panorama to be made here, so I did.
I can't post this type of file here directly, but here's a link to a pano I shot at sunset:
Sagehen Peak Sunset Pano

And here's a link to a pano I shot the next morning at sunrise:
Sagehen Peak Sunrise Pano
As usual, you need Quicktime Viewer/Player installed to view these.

 

[Silvertip47]

Absolutely gorgeous country!!!! Next Fall for me!!!!

 

[highz]

Beautiful stuff. Thanks for the trip report! On your map of Sagehen Peak, there's a campground symbol. Did you add that, or is there an "official" campground there?

 

[MarkBC]

highz - I put that campground symbol there -- it's definitely not an official campground. Though it was a little tricky to park in the spot I parked, a couple hundred feet below the summit there are a couple of flat spots with room for 2 or 3 rigs.

There's one more part to my trip -- The White Mountains, but I'll add that when I get home tonight.

I spent last night at a friend's house in Bridgeport -- the low here this morning was 13°! After breakfast at the Hays Street Cafe I'll be in driving mode today...about 8+ hours to Bend.

 

[MarkBC]

The White Mountains

Over the past 20 years or so I've made several visits to this high and arid range that lies about 30 miles east of the Sierra Nevada and makes the east wall of the almost 10,000-foot-deep trench called the Owens Valley. Though it's about the same height as the Sierra Nevada, with a high point (White Mt. Peak) over 14,000 feet, it's looks very different, probably because of the different geology and climate.

I spent two nights at 8500' Grandview Campground, the only USFS (Inyo NF) campground in the Whites. My favorite campsite, #22, was occupied when I got there Sunday night, so I spent the first night at an OK spot nearby and moved to #22 for the second night.

For most of my two-week trip the skies were totally clear (except for con-trails

), but there was a day-and-a-half in the Whites with quite a bit of clouds...and it wasn't a bad thing, photogenically.

After 2 lazy days at Grandview C.G. I drove north along the spine of the White Mts, past the Schulman Grove of Bristlecone Pines, where the pavement ends, and on a couple miles to near the top of the Silver Canyon Road, just outside the "Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest" area (where no camping is allowed). There's a spot there where I've camped before, but this time there were several power poles and big bags of gravel stashed there, like in prep for construction, so I decided to check out the area near a radio-tower facility about 1/4 mile away, up a hill. The forest of radio towers and shacks made it a little industrial looking, but I was far enough down the hill from those that I didn't have to look at them.

And the view north (up to White Mt. Peak) was mighty fine at sundown.

The view west of the Sierras was mighty fine, too.

I spent two nights (one day between) at this spot. It was sunny and clear and cold -- perfect conditions for photo-voltaic panels to produce electricity, and my panel produced more amp-hours that day (with help from me periodically re-orienting it to face the sun) than it ever has before.

Here's a map showing my White Mts. travel:



To be continued...

 

[MarkBC]

The White Mountains (continued)
After two nights camped by the radio towers it was time for me to start heading home...but before I did I wanted to continue my drive north along the crest of the White Mountains, as far as the locked gate at around 12,000 feet.

Past the turn-off to the Patriarch (bristlecone) Grove a temporary sign marked the road as "4-Wheel Drive Only", but that was probably because it had been a little snow-covered recently -- it wasn't necessary at this time.
As I came over a crest into a high plateau/basin the view reminded me of pictures I've seen of the high Andes, maybe the Bolivian Altiplano...

I love this kind of high barren terrain! I guess that's why I'm much more of a desert rat than a forest elf.

The high peak is "White Mountain Peak".

A couple miles on I reach the parking area and trailhead at the locked gate at about 11,800 feet elevation. Locked gate except for those with business at the University of California Barcroft Lab a little ways ahead.

This is where you'd park if you wanted to hike up to 14,250-foot White Mountain Peak. You can walk along a road clear to the summit, though past the lab the road is very rough/rocky...but still an easy climb (except for the altitude). I did that hike once about 20 years ago.

I had lunch at this point then headed south, back the way I had come.

Along the way I stopped to check out this stone structure...not prehistoric, I'm sure -- maybe semi-modern, but still interesting.

This is a fireplace with chimney!

I decided to check out a spur road that looks interesting, perhaps it would contain a spot for future dispersed camping, as it was outside/north of the "no-camping" Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest". Here's the road (photo taken as I exited):

This road leads down to Cottonwood Basin. It looks interesting...

Close-up of the aptly-named "Granite Meadow" in Cottonwood Basin:

I found a spot that was obviously a previous campsite, like someone had graded out a spot -- it fits!

So, that was it for the White Mountains...time to drop back down to civilization, such as it is.

To be continued...

 

[MarkBC]

After dropping down to Big Pine then Bishop I continued north on 395 towards Bridgeport, where I would spend the night at my friend's house.
As I crested Conway Summit I looked west at the area where there had been so much aspen-color the week before...and saw that most of the leaves had dropped

.
This shows the dramatic change that occurred in the 9 days between the two photos:




Oh well...time marches on.

 

[MarkBC]

Friday morning I had breakfast at the Hays Street Cafe in Bridgeport and headed north for home -- Bend, which I would reach that night.

Passing through Reno I stopped at the Friends of Nevada Wilderness (of which I'm a member) office to buy one of their beautiful "Wild Nevada" calendars for 2012 and I also met some of the staff.

On north I continued, listening to a "Return of the King" audiobook via my iPod as the miles went by...
I hadn't planned/expected to have any more photo-ops along the way, but as I went around Summer Lake (now back in "my territory"), I saw an amazing dust storm boiling across the mostly-dry lakebed. I stopped several times and took more and more photos as the storm kept morphing.

Strong winds coming over Winter Ridge appeared to be doing somersaults across Summer Lake

I shot this panorama:

Here's a link to a full-size (3800 x 800 pixels) version of this pano:
Summer Lake Dust Storm

As I continued north and crossed over the rim that separates the Summer Lake basin from Silver Lake I stopped and admired the wind-driven view once more:

I got home a couple of hours later, and my kitty-cat was glad to see me.
A very good trip.

The End.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Thanks for sharing the great photo shots.

Frank

 

[MarkBC]

BTW:
Somebody asked me if "my" camping spot on the south side of Mono Lake is a secret. It is in an out-of-the-way spot, but every time I've been there somebody else -- or two or three -- have driven up as if intending to camp there, but then turned around when they saw me. So, apparently lots of people know about it. I made this map when I camped in the same spot a year ago.

Campspot Coordinates:
Lat: 37° 55' 16" N; Lon: 118° 59' 41" W
Heading east on 120 (from 395) the marked/numbered USFS dirt road takes off from the highway a couple hundred yards before the highway enters the trees. There are other potential campsites along this dirt road.

 

[Silvertip47]

WOW!!! You are a true wanderer of Wander the West!!!!!

 

[Lighthawk]

Wow, Mark. You got some great stuff here. The summit shots of White Mtn, the dust storm shots on Summer Lake heading home, and more! We especially were impressed by the before/after shots of Conway Summit aspens. The conclusion seems to be: Get there early rather than late if you want fall color.

Thanks for the posts. It's been fun following your travels since we saw you at Bridgeport.
Susan is happy that kitty-kat has regained her owner.