Dead Man's Pass.

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Mono Lake, Lee Vining.
19-10-2002.

I've my breakfast in Bishop, a city with covered sidewalks and probably the biggest city I've seen since entering Owen's valley. Hunting and fishing must be real popular around here if I can judge from the number of hunting and fishing stores in this place.
I stop at a bicycle store to but some grease for my bike's chain and a small spray can containing WD-40 anti-rust. I'm actually quite surprised how well this cr*ppy old 100 dollar bicycle has been doing since setting out from Tijuana.
Let's see how this old steel lady under my *ss is gonna do today. I've to get across Dead Man's Pass which is at 8036 feet altitute and right in the haert of Inyo National Forest. The pass is also the end of owen's Valley.

Early afternoon.

With Lake Crowley behind me it is seriously uphill now. My breath is raspy and I try hard to control the air going in and out of my tormented lungs. I'm surrounded by weird looking pine trees, dark green needles hanging from their brances - an elderly english couple in a small mobile home that I met at a rest stop, told me these pine trees are called Jeffrey's Pines - ,startling yellow colored birch trees and the sound of woodpeckers aplenty.
The sides of the road are full with human produced garbage, no doubt thrown from the windows of passing cars, carton cups of McDonalds, the big yellow tits - The M you know - standing out in a crowd. Dirty underwear and lady's panties - bloody women's bandages still glued to the crotch - discarded mobile phones and rusty car tools.
At least I distracts me from the heavy phisical labour that is required from me cycling up Dead Man's Pass.
One discarded phone even starts to ring the moment I cycle past, I stop and pick it up pushing the button and saying;
"Yes, hello".
"Oh hullo Steve, it's me, Mum".
"Excuse me, ma'am but I'm Hans from Holand, just found your son's phone here near Dead Man's Pass".
"Now, don't be kidding your old Mum, Steve, I recognise your voice so don't play jokes on me or else".
She rattles on for a while but soon enough the phone's battery gives up on me and I leave this phone with the owner's raving Mum where I found it.
I still have to make it across Dead Man's Pass but now I know I'll make it, this little phone incident was just too much free entertainment.
I'm still laughing when I finally cycle across the pass.

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Photos

A page from my travel log
showing my trip

Grand Lake
From June Lake Loop

Dead Man's Pass
Cycling across.