Advertisement
Published: September 9th 2009
When: Labor day weekend :: 5th Sep - 7th Sep
Where: The lakes at Mammoth :: Devils postpile in the Eastern Sierras :: Ancient bristle cone forest in the White mountains
Dreaming of visiting the place we'd always wanted to visit, we set out early saturday morning. The place is a good 7 hr drive from where we call home.
Our so-far-trust-worthy cell phone alarm failed & we woke up 1 hr late to leave 1.5 hrs later. So much for a good & early start😞
Nevertheless, we were not to be disheartened.
Half way along, I remember reading a sign, "hwy 120 closed into Yosemite National Park". I remember asking Ganesh if he read the sign. He was like .....
As we got closer to the park, there were more signs informing closure of Tioga Road.
The information center at the junction of 108 & 120 was busy. People came out of their cars & stared at a board. We went ahead to check out what was going on. Turns out Tioga Road was indeed "closed".
The reason: Big Meadow fire.
Update: I now sit home on the 8th to R&D about the fire & guess what I found out? Big Meadow fire was a scheduled burn. That means, the NP authorities were the one to set it, but looks like there was a "fire escape" & it burned a lot more than it should have. Well, so much for nature being powerful.
More....
How lamer could we get not checking the road conditions? That's a bunch of pathetic travelers right there😞
With Tioga Road closed, our only other option was to cross the
Sierra Nevada continuing on hwy108 via the
Sonora Pass.
We'd driven on this road from West to East. Never from East to West. We knew the road was going to be steep, very steep. Well, turns out the word "steep" is an understatement to this road(parts of the climb are at a 26%!g(MISSING)rade).
We finally climbed way up & were happy to see the pass. It was a hot day. But we saw a lot of traffic today, probably due to Tioga Road closure. We could smell the fire at higher elevations.
We finally DID cross over to 395. We had initially planned on visiting
Devils Postpile. But between hwy 108, our little one & the
scotching UVR-filled heat we decided otherwise. We headed to the
Lakes basin in Mammoth Lakes. We chose to hike the 1/2 mile trail to McLeod Lake. It is an alpine lake, with shades of blue & green. But the biggest award - We had the lake all to ourselves for about 30 minutes.
McLeod lake is nestled amidst high granite peaks.
The hikers we met were exceptionally friendly. Most of them came up with dogs. Little S had a lifetime of saying "bow bow" at every turn.😊
I happen to discover that the Mammoth Lakes area has a a lot of hiking(& definitely backpacking) oppurtunity than I'd known. I don't think our visit did it any justice.
This should help, if you plan on visiting the area.
We headed S to Bishop for the night. We had no idea this was their busy season & they had a Rodeo & fair going on. The city was hot(90F) & busy well into the night.
Sun, 6th Sep
We had an early start today as well. We headed S to Big Pine to get onto 168E that would lead us to the top of White mountains. There, we should witness the
oldest living thing in the world, "the ancient bristle cone pines". The oldest living tree, the Methuselah tree is claimed to have been 2641 yrs when Jesus Christ was born. That's pretty darn amazing. But this tree is not marked to prevent Vandalism from visitors.
But before all that, we met a lady & man at an overlook point .The lady lives in Big Pine & is probably many many years old. The man, now he had returned from hiking a part of John Muir trail. He gave us a sneak peak about the trail & how busy a trail it is. "You are never alone on the trail, unless you really want to", he said.
He lives in Alaska & vowed to come back next year to finish the rest of the trail.
The lady threw light on the native Indians in Big Pine(yes, there are Indians in Big Pine).
They both had fun playing with Little S & our little one seemed to enjoy their company talking to them trying to exhaust her intensive vocabulary.😊
From the overlook, we could see the Owens valley being sandwiched between the newer Sierra Nevada & the older White
Mountains.
The drive is a steady climb from 3000ft in the valley to 11000ft to where the Bristle cone pines reside.
It is an irony that until we planned for this trip, I did not know about the
White mountain range in CA.
What all can a travel do to its true seeker? Unfold a life-changing experience.
We stopped by the Sierra View overlook that gave us the complete view of the Sierra range. We could not see Mt.Whitney(tallest in the lower 48) from there, but we knew it was there. But I should say that Sierras look more majestic with their snow. Without that, they probably looked like any other range😞
The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, located in the White Mountains of California, is home to the oldest known living trees on earth, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Pinus longaeva.
The oldest tree, nicknamed "Methuselah", is more than 4,750 years old, and is not marked to ensure added protection from vandals. The grove lies in the Inyo National Forest, between 3,000-3,300 m (10,000-11,000 feet) above sea level.
The next stop was by the visitor center that was not yet opened. So, we took off on the Methuselah trail. Five minutes into the trail, I decided there was no way anyone could ever find out the oldest tree. There was a real forest out there. A self guided brochure helped us learn a bit about the soil & environment there. We encountered lots of meditating moments out on the trail before it turned extremely hot & dry. And we certainly felt the altitude.
The hike: 4 mi loop hike that takes 2.5 - 3
hrs on an average. You will need at least 2 ltrs of water.
The last 2 miles are steadily uphill.
We were kind of happy to return back to cool off & spent some time looking in the temporary visitor center. There were more people coming in now & the parking lot was almost full. After some serious thinking, we decided to drop going over the 12mile unpaved road to Patriarch grove.
The 95F temperature in Bishop made us rethink our decision from coming down the mountains. We retired to the air conditioned room to relax. Later in the evening, I found some time to check out the murals in the city. We also visited the city park for the little one to play.
Mon, 7th Sept
A visit to one of the special rock formations.
Devils Postpile National Monument.
We caught the 9.30am shuttle bus into the monument. It is a good 25 min ride down 1500ft via the narrow road to the valley. Frequency is decent on the shuttle - almost every 20 min. We got down at stop 4 that was the trailhead to the postpile. There was also a ranger station.
The short 0.4 mi trail
Devil's postpile
at its worst lightingtook us right to the base of the postpile. We took the steep trail to the top to view the glacial striations. We made a not-so-quick decision to hike the 2.5 mi to the Rainbow falls instead of taking the bus back to the nearest trail head. Little S dozed off into some serious slumber as she was scramping on it for the past 2 days.
The hike: 2.5 mi to Rainbow falls. At 0.4 mi the postpile stand up to your left. For best lighting, visit later in the day. The hike to the falls is a mix of downhill & flat & mostly in the open. A pretty easy hike if there was no sun. And if you want to see the rainbow over the falls, the magic number is 2pm.
San Joaquin river has its headwaters in the park & being low season, it obviously was not swelling with water.
Nevertheless, we reached the falls. I had to get down to the base of the falls via some steep steps & some scrambling rocks. I had my share of slipping & getting wet, but I managed to save the camera every single time. I
would recommend this view to everyone. It is a short & steep trail, but so worth it, even if it means you slip & fall into the water for every step you take towards crossing the cold waters.
Climbing back up was not as difficult as I thought it to be. Once at the top, lots of squirrels peeked their head in the hope of some food. Not sure if they got any.
We took the 1.3 mi all uphill trail to the nearest bus stop. Along the way, we saw what seemed like a 70yr young man who had been into the mountains for like 4 days. He said he would have stayed another day, but he broke his crown cap & everyone knows that needs a fixing. He hiked faster than us with his heavy backpack. I truly felt humiliated.
It took us a good 30 min to get back to the car during which we saw like a dozen backpackers board in at Agnew meadows. One couple told us about their trip where they camped below the minarets at 11000 ft. Surprisingly, none of them saw a bear.
Back at the car, we were
heading out of Mammoth at 5pm(way past our planned return time). Thankfully, little S slept in about 20 minutes & did not wake up until we were home 6.5 hrs later. Else, the trip would have gotten lot longer. We took the 108 again, though Tioga road had opened up the earlier day. 108 was not so bad this time.
We reached home just as the labor day ended.
A long & tiring journey, but I am so happy we saw what we saw. With
John Muir Trail(JMT) still in our minds, we rest. Whether we do it or not, only time will tell.
~travelbuffs
__________
I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.
~John Muir
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0273s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
dragonlady
Kathy H
Methuselah was not marked
I'm sure it was disappointing for you, not being able to see the oldest tree, but it was probably the best thing for the tree to protect it from idiots. It can't be replaced once it's gone. We have an ancient species of pine in Australia, the Woolamai Pine, that was thought to be extinct and was found growing in a single valley in the Northern Territory. Botanists decided that the best way to protect it was to propagate as many as possible and make then readily available so that plant collectors would not want it for its rarity and dig it up or damage it. That wouldn't work for Methuselah, as his age is the attraction. You had some wonderful scenery on your trip. I enjoyed reading about it. Very different to Australia.