please remember you can click on a photo to see a larger version & highlighted text are links to additional information
“How ‘bout”
It was a taste of winter. The storm broke during the night. Snow showers lingered over the Sierra crest in the morning with chain controls remaining in effect. We held back on leaving until 0900 to allow the plow crews to complete their work. We were successful, crossing just as controls were lifted. We traveled through an amazing landscape with swirling clouds, breaks of bright blue sky, and new snow.
After our first night, we needed to decide where to go. Yes, this was pretty much unplanned, but we are adept at coming up with adventures. “How ‘bout?” led to driving over Montgomery Pass and on to the Volcanic Hills. Standing water everywhere nixed that plan. Mud fests are not our style. The next “How ‘bout?” took us over Gilbert Summit and on to White Mountain City. A research paper from around 1960 has led us on a search for five boulders with petroglyphs that the author stated were 2 miles up the canyon above the ruins of the old city. This would be our third search for the elusive ancient rock art. Four low is required to drive above the ruins and up into the canyon. We revisited all our prior search areas, hoping another thorough look would yield success. No. We settled into a favorite camp spot for a glorious quiet night of solitude, us and the night and the stars.
“How ‘bout?” the next morning took us into the Inyo Mountains’ Mazourka Canyon to Barrel Springs. Joan and Carol, Mary DeDecker’s daughters, write in their wonderful book Sage & Sierra about climbing to Winnedumah Paiute Monument (scroll down the page to Winnedumah) from Barrel Springs. The Lady has been intent on finding and hiking their route. Studying Google Earth yielded a few waypoints along, what looked like, sections of old trail. I added these waypoints to our mapping program. We spent several hours on extremely rugged terrain. As high as we climbed, we found no trail bed so we ended this scouting expedition and retreated down to the canyon bottom.
Mountain Mouse has a webpage on hiking the Barrel Springs route in December1976.
In the late afternoon we found a nice dispersed camp spot near the bottom of Mazourka Canyon, well off of the main road.
That evening we climbed the hill above camp. The view south down the Owens Valley.
At the top, we marveled at the view west with Owens Valley, the town of Independence, and the Sierra Nevada escarpment.
The Lady, with her phone, had 4 bars up here. A text message came from our friend the Sagebrush Reconnoiterer, an avid historian. He was responding about our location from our nightly “camped here tonight” InReach message. What a tale he had to tell. A 25 year old woman was last seen alive on June 24, 2006 on Mazourka Canyon Road. Several weeks later, in August, her body was found very close to where we were camped. Sagebrush related that he followed the story closely as he lived in Big Pine at the time. An online search found this newspaper account – Simi Valley Woman Found Dead. It is, unfortunately, another very sad story and I suspect there are inaccuracies in the linked article.
Ghosts were quiet and at peace through night. Our neighbors were not. Mazourka Canyon is a popular place, a mecca of sorts, for the southern California overloading crowd. We were aware and that’s why we got off the main road. Early evening a group of three vehicles drove in, circled the wagons, and set up camp well within sight of us, something we would not do to other people in an open remote area. We consider it a common courtesy to not encroach. We not so jokingly equate it to their fear of the outdoors and the need to have other people in sight. Poor souls.
About bedtime, a text from the Reconnoiterer asked if our neighbors were behaving. “Liquor’s kicking in,” I answered, “And they’re getting loud.”
We were up well before dawn and ready for first light to work its magic on the landscape.
The evening before we spent time rereading and studying our materials concerning those elusive petroglyph boulders above White Mountain City. We made a discovery. A boulder with rock art in a different area had petroglyphs that matched the drawings in the paper. Was the location that far off and were there four other boulders near the one we’d found 5 years ago? “How ‘bout we go back to White Mountain City and continue the search?” The Lady was anxious and excited to possibly solve this puzzle.
Boulder one, found 5 years ago.
A new find, Boulder Two. And the ‘glyphs matched the drawings in the paper. Success!
Boulder Three.
Boulder Three was also a puzzle because the medicine wheel (my interpretation) in the upper left looked to be a more recent addition and was not in the paper’s drawings.
Boulder Four.
We did not find Boulder Five, although we repeated went over the search area. We did find several other rocks with petroglyphs not mentioned in the paper for extra credit.
This one was very faded but most interesting because it incorporated an intrusion in the granite.
We found this very recent rock art. This possibly answers the question about the medicine wheel on Boulder Three. Someone is adding new rock art to this ancient site.
We ended our search for the fifth boulder mid afternoon. “How ‘bout?” took us into the White Mountains, back to a favorite dispersed site to spend the night. The ground was snow covered in the shaded areas. On our evening walk, the Lady saw a rocky outcrop capping the ridge line to the southeast of camp. “We’ll check that out in the morning!” she firmly stated.
Our coffee wander the following morning was more of a coffee climb. Nothing but the very top would do.
I gave a suggestion in answer to where we should should go this day. “How ‘bout” we return to a favorite campsite from years ago? It’s a long drive out to this remote spot in the Volcanic Tablelands. It sits on the edge of Chalk Bluff with wonderful views. We both remembered this is where we came for my sixtieth birthday thirteen years ago. We were quickly set up. And after a night up in the snow, we appreciated 70 degrees and changed into shorts. It was near perfect weather.
We wandered and searched the cliff faces to the east for ancient rock art.
We took in the incredible views before returning to camp.
We were back out to the edge for last light at sunset.
Here was our view at dinner.
Views at first light the next day.
Sunlight reached camp.
And here’s where we enjoyed eating breakfast.
We leisurely drove back to our house and ended this quick five night trip. “How ‘bout?” worked out pretty darn well.
No comments:
Post a Comment