Bishop, CA

We arrived in Bishop on Saturday, April, 30th, a day before we had planned. As we traveled there we had seen one breath taking scene after another. We saw Mt Whitney, a huge dried up lake bed, a Mountain top turquoise blue lake, snow covering all the peaks, an honest to goodness cattle round up and majestic mountains that pictures nor words can show or tell. We held up traffic as we slowly lumbered along with our mouths hanging open.
We drove into town checking out the stores and people. We found the fairgrounds just as we were directed. This is where we will stay for two weeks getting used to the area, the people and the altitude. We got settled in by about 2pm and found that Mass was at 4pm and wouldn't you know it, the church was three blocks from us. We showered and changed and walked there. We walked in the door and this is the view that is behind the Altar.

This is what we saw, looking out the windows were snow covered mountains.

Mo turned off the flash and you can almost see the mtns.

Here Mo is outside looking back at the church, you can see the mountains reflected in the glass.

and then she turned 180' and this is the view! This area is a prayer garden then just public land from there on......

The path in the garden wound around with benches placed here and there for comfortable reflection.

Sunday we slept in and took a walk through town. Bishop is a small town, I think it is mostly supported by tourist trade since it is on the road to Mammoth Lakes and that is a BIG ski resort area. There are lots of small, in size but some big name, hotels, sporting goods stores, a few restaurants, a beautiful city park and all the small town things. There is a KMart, a Von's (Kroger) and an independent grocery and a couple of feed stores. Everything you could want and no more! and that's because..... Back in the 20's the city of Los Angeles bought ALL the surrounding land for water rights, what is City of LA is BLM or National Forest. Now I thought that kinda stunk but the people here look at it differently. First, all of the land is open to public use, grazing, hiking, hunting,trout fishing, it's just asked that you close gates behind you; second, and this is a big one, none of this land can be developed so that stopped the mass land purchases for subdivisions, golf courses, shopping malls etc. The people have  basically frozen the size of their city! We talk to everybody we meet here and though they're not crazy about LA, they love their land!
One of the shops we went in is 'Sage to Summit', a running and hiking store. Business was slow so I asked about trails to run in the area. The young lady was really nice and open with lots of good info. Later in the day Mo and I drove the Jeep on one she mentioned called Silver Canyon. It went up, up, and up. The road got narrower and rockier, Mo was driving and having a good time! The canyon walls were straight up on both sides and we forded 5 streams, all about 5-10' wide and maybe 12" deep with fast flowing water. Tracey, the store clerk, said very often mountain sheep/goats are spotted on the canyon sides so we kept watching but didn't see any. By then it was about 4pm. We turned around about 5 miles up and coasted back down, being careful not to overheat the brakes! Here's a few pics in the Silver Canyon.....

OOPs, forgot to turn this one.

The Silver Canyon Trail was neat but it was basically a very rocky, narrow road, straight up.
So after we got back down we still had daylight so we decided to check out another trail she told us about, this one she said was tough single track, used alot by mountain bikers and pretty tough to run. I kinda took offense here, did I look that whimpy ??The trail head was up the hwy a bit but we found it and then drove the road up to the other end. The drive itself was beautiful....
Here's a few pics we stopped and took about 1/2 way up to the top.

If you look kind of on the left about center, you can see the canyon the trail is in.

That's the canyon along the bottom of the picture.

Pretty incredible, huh?

The name of the trail is 'The Lower Rock Creek Trail' and it was decided then and there that Tuesday morning I'd be at the lower trail head. Mo would pick me up at the top. The start is at 5,000' and the finish is at 7,000' elevation over the course of 7 +/- miles. I hadn't seen any of the trail so I only knew it was all up and it was supposed to be tough to run in that direction.
Monday we met up with our new friends that we'd be working with. Tom and Pam came over to our place and though we had talked to them, when they got out of the car Mo and I both felt a big relief. They are our age, we share a lot in common in lots of ways, so as we had a few drinks we all determined this will be a good combination. They, nor Mo and I, have had the opportunity to meet the third couple we will be working with but I'm sure the team will gel as there will be a LOT of work digging out the cabins!
Tuesday came and I was psyched for a good run. I filled a water bottle, grabbed some p-nut butter crackers, salt tabs the camera and was ready to go. Mo dropped me off about 9:15am and I figured about an hour and a half should do it, so she would meet me at the top about 10:30-45. First I had to find the trail, you entered through some private property on a road, then picked your way, or at least I did, to the trail head. I started slowly to move up the trail, this was a roaring creek going through a canyon. Though the canyon walls were sheer rock, all in the bottom was a lush forest, ....
Here's a few pics

This is the trail as it first came out from the bottom forest.

The trail wound back and forth across the creek, there were some wooden bridges.

Her I'm looking back down the creek, the small creek on the right was the trail also, you went from rock to rock for about 15'.

I tried to get a picture of this crashing water fall but the growth was so thick it didn't turn out.

These were HUGE cedar trees along the lower section, no lie they were 7' across at my head height. They were giants.

This is a pretty rocky section, all of this trail was runnable, none was to steep, just a gradual climb. Some sections, though were so rocky or loose rubble, that you walked. I found lots of opportunity to walk, I was amazed and looking around at the beauty!

It's a wonder I didn't roll an ankle, I couldn't help but look up, down, all around me!

This is an old tree that fell across the creek, wish it came out better, it was a great scene.

Looking back down the trail at the loose rock, wondering how it would be flying down on a good bike!

There were lots of flowers just starting to bloom out, bright red Indian Paintbrush, little yellow flowers, the sage was very fragrant. This pink flower bush really caught my eye, they were like small roses. These bushes were all up this canyon side.

Can't see them to good but they're there!

A shot of the creek rushing along. There had to be trout in there!

This was a huge rock wall, all cracked and heavy, right on the trail, it looked like it could crash down any second.

I don't know what year this old car is, probably in the 40's. The road is about 100' above here, he must have missed the curve. I guess there was no reason to pull it back up.

An easy section of trail.

This was a picture in the center section of trail, at some time long past, this area burned.

Entering an Aspen stand nearing the top.

These are Aspen trees, they turn a bright gold in the fall.

This purple thrift type of plant was beside the trail, the pine cone was just sitting there, had to take a picture!

I finally came out at the top at 11:05, over 35 minutes past the time I told Mo to meet me. I knew she would be worried. She wasn't there but I figured she drove down the road to see if she could spot me. After about 10 minutes she came up the road and we headed back home. After we got up on the main hwy, she stopped and I snapped these two shots. The mountain you see is Red Mtn and the trail continues up to the top at 11,000+'. maybe next week if the snow melts some..... The last picture is looking down into the canyon I was running in from Hwy 395.

 That was a great run, I was so pumped when I got in the Jeep I babbled probably stupidly but Mo got excited enough to want to hike some of it so I think Friday we just might!
We got back to town and had some lunch and decided to bike around town some, we needed to go to the post office. The bike trip turned into a 10 mile trip out to Chalk Bluff and Owens River, all back country jeep roads. Round trip was about 20 miles and Mo did great. She got a little nervous when we came up on several free range cows in the path but they moved aside without trouble.  We both ate a big dinner and slept good that night!
Today, Wednesday, we shopped second hand stores for cheap winter clothes to work in, We walk everywhere and today we probably walked 6 miles just around this town.
Tomorrow we go to Mammoth Lakes with Tom and Pam. We'll get a preview of the town and it's a big Cinco de Mayo celebration there so it will be another fun filled day in our adventure.
Stay tuned.........

California...WOW!

We left Arizona and traveled on I-10 and figured we would break the trip up and stay a night in Quartzsite, AZ. We had heard from lots of RV folks that the desert area there was full of RV's dry camping and you could just pull in and park anywhere. Well we quickly found out that was easier said then done! The area is huge and there are areas where you must pay and areas only for long term, paid parking etc. We asked a gas station attendant and she was really vague so we found a host trailer in one of the long term areas and he directed us to an area that we could go to. It was kinda close to the interstate but it was late and we were tired so we set up for the night. It turned out to be OK, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and slept good.
Here's a few pictures;

here we are where we pulled off the road in Quartzsite. I-10 was maybe 1/4 mile in front of the MH but behind and all around was desert and mountains. The range you see here is about 8 miles away.

 This is looking in the opposite direction. (East) These 'hills were only about 1 mile away and I would have run ot them and to the top had we stayed another day. On top of each of those two rounded tops an American flag flew so there was a way up.

 These mtns were behind us, probably 10 miles away. (South) There was still a bit of snow on top of a few peaks.

 We walked south maybe a 100 yards or so and took this picture. This Saguaro Cactus is about 21 years old, they sprout arms at about 20 years old. It's getting close to sunset now and it looks like it will be a good one.

 Clouds in the sky here really light up as the sun goes down. (Looking northwest)

 As the sun set, Mo noticed a 'Devils Walking Cane' Cactus in bloom and got this shot.

 Here's a close up of the bloom, it is bright, bright red on the end of a dried up looking stalk completely covered with thorns.

 The sun sets, Thursday, April 28.

 We woke up to beautiful blue skies on Friday morning and set sail for California, a new state and another adventure.

We had talked to lots of people while we were going across the country, when we told them where we were headed all of them warned of how expensive it would be, but only a  few said anything about how beautiful it would be!

Here's the first thing we saw

Then we saw the welcome sign

Then we saw the first gas station. Just 20 miles ago, the last exit in Arizona, all the prices were .65 p/g less

Some of the CA mountains we saw as soon as we turned north off I-10

The first glimpse of the Colorado River

Another CO River shot, This is way south of the Hoover Dam and Los Angelas has drained alot so it's not as big as it is further north.

Can you see the whoop-ti-dos in the road? We were going about 55 and they would take your stomach away! Mo hated them, I loved em!

We would cross this range, it was pretty high, 7,000'?

So we finally got through the mountains and we were both pretty tired so we were ready to find a place.We were glad to finally be in CA but......
As always, we had to be initiated!  We decided we weren't in a hurry so we would stay another day dry camping someplace on BLM land or a truck stop. This to save money and for the adventure of it. We found a place in a free site journal on BLM land in Hodges, CA , only about 6 miles out of our way, so we headed there. We found the area, no problem and pulled in to the gravel area. There weren't any other RV's there but there were people there so we set up and then looked around. We heard gunshots and we looked through the binoculars at the folks down a ways and sure enough they were target shooting against the hillside. That lasted a while and we didn't think to much of it, in fact I got out my pistol and Mo and I took a couple of pot shot into a gully hillside by the MH. The people left, still we heard gunshots. More people left and still more shooting, but less. Finally everyone left about 6pm. It was quiet so as Mo and I went for a little walk. We went down to where the closest group were shooting and there must have been, now I'm not exaggerating here, there must have been 5,000 spent cartridges of every caliber and type! Rifle, Pistol, Shotgun, machine gun?, they were all over the place and the hillside was a graveyard of broken glass, holey cans, TV's, boxes, furniture all shot to pieces. Obviously, this was the place to shoot! As we walked back we saw another place similar but not quite as dramatic. Well, as Mo started dinner I went for a run to look around. I ran about 3-4 miles and I came across a fellow who was standing around the 'kill zone' and I stopped and made conversation with him. He said this is a favorite place for shooting and was pretty safe but since it was Friday night, there would be people shooting pretty early Saturday morning. I figured that was OK, we would be leaving early anyway. We tucked in about 10:30 and drifted off to sleep. About midnight a car drives in, it was all gravel so it seems real load at night, Woke us both up. I figured it was lovers but it frightened Mo. I drifted back off, about 1am Mo woke me and another car was coming in, this one, actually two trucks, went past us to towards the shooting area. Now we were both awake, Mo was frightened bad now and was ready to pack up and leave! About 2:30 the shooting started, bang, bang, bang, bang! Wait a few seconds and again, usually at least 2 shots, often 8-12 in rapid fire. These were pistol shots and were probably 200-300 yards away, far but not really far enough. We hung in until daylight and then hit the highway! Probably won't stop there again! (We didn't even take pictures there!)
So now we're  in Bishop, CA, We'll be here for 2 weeks before moving up to Mammoth Lakes. This is a small town, relying on tourist trade, mostly going to Mammoth to ski, It's about 35 miles away. I'm already working on a post from here and I'll try and get it done tomorrow, Wednesday. ( This is getting to long!)