Bishop, California Area - March 2019

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"Were you ever out in the great alone 
when the moon was awful clear
and the icy mountains hemmed you in 
with a silence you most could hear?"

Robert W. Service

Our last couple of trips included stays in campgrounds. Cooped up, neighbors settled in too close around, noisy generators, loose dogs, rude people - it was way too much like city life, well at least what I've been told city life is like. Our biggest draw to venture out as we do is to get away from most everything related to modern man. If we can find a spot with not a single man made light visible or any  man made sounds, well that is just getting good. Give us that "silence you most could hear," hem us in with icy mountains, and it brings a joy to our hearts. On this trip we were searching for silence and a lonely spot, looking for that "great alone."

But we live in California, the most populated state in our union, does any place like that still exist?

Our Friday morning drive was uneventful. We waited for chain controls to be lifted and the horde of skiers racing up to stand in lift lines to taper off before we launched. The high rotary cut snow banks along the highways from our over 150% of average snowpack were impressive. We soaked in the freedom of the road. We arrived in Bishop early afternoon and then headed out up onto the flanks of the Long Valley Caldera to find the loneliest spot we could. We yearned for success.

It was just right. We quickly settled in and checked out our surroundings. Around the first corner was an ancient rock alignment.

This area is almost entirely comprised of Bishop Tuff, welded volcanic ash from the Long Valley Eruption 760,000 years ago.

We wandered back to camp, made a quick dinner, and enjoyed the changing light as day turned to night.

The White Mountains hemmed us in on the east with White Mountain Peak's  profile fading last into the night. White Mountain is the highest peak in the Great Basin and the third highest in California. A list of California's highest can be found here - List of Major 3000 meter peaks in California.

The last colors of sunset rose above the Sierra Nevada to the west.

The silence was incredible overnight, although we would not have minded a chorus of yapping, singing, and howling coyotes - "Song Dogs" we like to call them.

The bright light of sunrise lit up the Sierra the next morning. We took it all in on our walk with mugs of coffee.

Our camp spot near perfect.

We packed up Saturday morning and set off to do some exploring. The Lady wanted to check out winter road access up into North Lake, Sabrina, and South Reservoir for possible future ski trips. We did that and then ventured out to the Buttermilks, which was filled with happy climbers in the warm sun. Snow on the road blocked driving much past the climbing area.

We returned to Bishop and stopped in at the pioneer cemetery on West Line Street to pay our respects to a famous old cowboy, his final resting place marked with a simple headstone.

Curley Fletcher was one of the first cowboy poets. His work - Songs of the Sage - was first published in 1931

Since there was not a tour bus in sight, we thought it safe to make a dash into Erick Schats Bakery to purchase a Mule Kick Sandwich for lunch in the park. A Mule Kick is a roast beef sandwich on sourdough with sliced jalapeño peppers, a sandwich that will wake you up to meet the rest of the day. Too many jalapeños in one bite and you can see jesus.

Afternoon was time for a walk in the Volcanic Tablelands.

We had visited this petroglyph site in the past and always enjoyed it.

It is a vast area to wander about, as we did. Our searching this time yielded three shelter sites  with pictographs.

We saw an interesting rock formation as we passed Fish Slough.

We pondered on what it could be and finally settled on it being a cast of a dragon's tongue, a dragon buried in ash during the Long Valley eruption, much like the casts of victims found in Pompeii and Herculaneum. We wondered how many thousands of centuries of erosion it will take to uncover more of the dragon?

It was now late afternoon and we searched for another camp spot out in "the great alone" hemmed in by icy mountains.

Silence, again, enveloped us in the night. The morning came with wondrous light on our spectacular surroundings.

The Lady and I love our early morning walks.

We had a plan for Sunday. We wanted to make a quick hike up to the Jeffery Mine's Black Eagle Camp and spend an hour or so. We had visited three previous times and it's well worth the steep climb. Our plans collided with the current condition of the 4x4 road up to the trailhead. It was always a rough, slow drive. Now it is worse. A washout in a secondary wash crossing has taken out the road about two thirds of the way up. A few boulders and stacked rocks allow a precarious crossing at a tight turn, much more difficult on the return. The Lady spotted me on the crossing. Tire placement is critical. Just past the intersection with the road up to the upper trailhead, flood waters in the main wash has cut an impassable trench across where the road once ran. The hike to the Black Eagle Camp is now a bit longer. Our scouting, spotting, and crawling up the road took so much time, we could not do the hike up. Note - we have driven the steep road up to the upper trailhead. It is a rough dangerous drive. Two people were injured in 2014 as their vehicle rolled down the mountain. We will not drive that section again. It was still a very nice morning and early afternoon. But, we needed to get somewhere.......................

The addition to our quick trip happened Friday morning as we dropped down the long grade of highway 88 to Gardnerville. The Lady had one of those "I was thinking," moments - as in. "I was thinking, we should call Jimmy and see if there is a spot open for Sunday night." Jimmy answered the call, the question was asked, the answer was given. "We just had a cancellation," Jimmy said. "It's yours!"

Check in time was three pm.

All our hot spring dreams soon came true. My god, did we settle in and make ourselves at home.

Weekends can hardly be better than this one. Wandering, exploring, finding our own "great alone" and top it off with a buried dragon and a private hot tub is pretty darn special.