El Camino Sierra

California Hwy 395

By Time2Geaux Unplugged

October 25^th, 2018

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." St. Augustine

Leaving central California, we crossed the pass north of Carson City and then headed south to Hwy 395, down the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This is an area I have been drawn back to time after time. We started out with a day at Lake Tahoe, then worked our way south until we got to Lone Pine and headed over to Las Vegas to visit a dear friend who I biked across Death Valley to Mount Whitney with.

Lake Tahoe

Since we stayed a few days in Carson City, we took a drive over to visit the largest alpine lake in North America. For those that remember the TV show Bonanza, the Ponderosa ranch bordered Lake Tahoe on the lakes north west side. We didn’t find any Cartwrights but we did find lunch in South Lake Tahoe. We were a day early for Octoberfest in Camp Richardson area so we went to Taylor Creek area for a hike. Afterwards we went north to Sand Harbor beach and spend the remainder of our daylight. The water was so clear, this would be a nice place to visit in the warmer weather!

EXPLORING A GHOST TOWN

Bodie, CAlifornia

I have heard of ghost towns but to see one in person is quite unique! Bodie is not what I expected from a ghost town, I imagined one main street with a few buildings on each side, nope this is a town that when the mines shut down, people just walked away with what they could carry and left everything else behind. I suppose the remoteness of this place and cost of transportation made it impractical to move most of the belongings. Stores with last century merchandise still on the shelves, family houses with furniture still in the room, commercial shops with tools still siting where they were last used. Quite a sight!

Once known as one of the most lawless and wildest mining towns in the west where life wasn’t considered of much value. The town is at an elevation of 8375 feet, where the winters were brutal and always subjected to high winds, this wasn’t a pleasant place to live. At its peak after gold was discovered in 1859, more than 8000 people lived in Bodie and the town had more than 60 saloons. To quote the minister Reverend F.M. Warrington “… a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion.”

It is hard to get your head around people just walking away from all their positions, leaving dishes in the cupboards and sheets on the bed but that is what you will see at Bodie. I guess when the call of gold came they left in a hurry, leaving a hundred plus year old time capsule unlike anything we have ever seen.

Boarding house / hotel on Main Street in Bodie

Sheep herd and the dog that manages them

TUFA Formations

Mona Lake has some naturally formed limestone formations that were exposed by the water drawdown that Los Angles created when they took more water from Mona Lake than flows in. These tufa towers were formed when freshwater spring, rich in calcium bubbled up through the acidic (carbonate-rich) water leaving calcium carbonate salt deposits. These vertical towers make this place quite unique.

JoAnn among the tufa formations, Mona Lake

METHUSELAH WALK

Bristlecone Pine Forest

Visiting the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is a hike like no other. These trees that are the oldest living trees on earth, and to walk among trees that are thousands of years old. The oldest living tree is the Methuselah Grove, have the appearance of being dead but are still very much alive, 4,600 years old and still growing!

These trees grow high up in the White Mountains, part of the Inyo National Forest. The land is baron at 9,000 ft plus with little growing in the dolomite that gives the White Mountains their name but these trees helped re-write history! In an unlikely connection between dendrochronology (study of tree rings) and carbon dating, these trees supplied the calibration source to correct the error that was known in the dating process. With the work of Dr. Schulman and others a verifiable source of carbon-based materials was able to be used to correct the calculations back to the last ice age, some 11,500 years.

Bristle Cone Pine, Methuselah trail, Inyo National Forest

Jeff and Bella on the Methuselah trail, Inyo National Forest

What a we Learned

California Hwy 395 is a special place, you could spend month or more here and never have to look for something to do.

People are starting to ask us for advice about their campers… While we are newbies we did acquire good troubleshooting skills working in research at Dow Chemical. We have been able to help all request so far…

We have been moving too fast lately, we have a firm date for the camper rally but after that we will slow down and plan to spend a week or two at each location.

Next Stop

After leaving Lone Pine and Hwy 395 we will head south to Las Vegas and see Joey and his family then head on to Phoenix to visit our friend Val. After that we will head back to Texas for a camper rally at the end of October.