10th May
Out over the mountains up to7500ft and then down towards Carson City to pick up the 395 again to work our way south for the stretch including Death Valley, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.
Reaching the 395 after coming down to around 4000ft we trundled though I suppose a high valley which ran a long way and which looked very wet and marshy though probably good agricultural land. Lots of available water.
Coffee at Bridgeport, keep forgetting the ge, where the scenery started changing and here politics and water rule the roost.
Los Angeles City bought in 1904 the whole of Owens Valley probably some 200 miles long with the 395 running through it or the fledgling road running through it. The purchase was rather dubious but legal. Other areas were also purchased various reasons being given but water was the reason and probably never mentioned. An aqueduct/viaduct /channels etc was constructed some 250 gravity fed all the way down to Los Angeles, main streams and mountain rivers were diverted into the channels and later many more minor streams went that way. Result the whole area was transformed, at the head Mono Lake possibly the oldest lake in the USA certainly one that had survived two ice ages and the creation of mountain ranges in the area has been virtually destroyed in one generation. Water levels down 50ft bird life of all types of over 5 million a year 98 % disappeared etc. Further down we stayed at Lone Pine where the lake which was 50ft deep and many miles square has gone leaving a surface of silica dust which blows everywhere and is a long term health hazard. Talks and agreements go on with LA but not too much ground is given by them it's really 17 million people v limited areas of environment, wild life and a few thousand people. Where is the right and wrong, easy to side with the environment but we moan at hosepipe bans, the ultimate answer I suppose will be the sea once it becomes cost effective with the desalination plants.
Mono lake had some interesting tufas being sort of stalacmite like things which grow up under water and are caused by calcium bearing freshwater bubbling up under the carbonate laden lake to form limestone in weird shapes below water, these are seen today as the lake dries out. ( work out the chemistry there).
Further down the road to Mammoth Lakes for a night stop at Mammoth Mountain RV park, expensive and very poor value. The town says it vies with Whistler in Canada as the best skying ever, can't say about the skiing though it appears to have many runs and some skiing was still going on however, the town or part we saw was not a patch on Whistler. Actually bought 4 shirts here so must be some good though I am judging by Edinburgh Woollen Mill standards!
11th May
Short run today down to Lone Pine a pleasent little town which has one claim to fame- The Alabama range of mini mountains fronting the highest peak of the High Sierra Mountain Mount Whitney14495 ft. The claim to fame is that virtually every cowboy film from the silent movies to the late 1950s and then the tv series of the 60s were all made here. Every actor I can name and many I have never heard of worked here. 450 Feature films, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, The Cissco Kid to name but a few. Science fiction movies are no using the area for sequences requirng out of this world landscape. The newish film museum here has all this on display and we drove round the area and all these fims were made, quite illuminating really though you can also see how the camera lies and how a tiny shot out of context can seem much bigger, what's new you can see it every day in the TV news.
Site here the Boulder Creek RV Resort was quite the best we have been on even provided free coffee and muffins twixt 7 and 9 in the morning, had to get up early for that!
