Day one… Bishop

We, Steph and I and Andrew and Lisa… are headed into the Valley of Death… not the valley of the Light Brigade, the 600 and British heroic poetry, but the US National Park… Death Valley.

Death Valley is not near San Mateo, so we have started our journey with a 6 hour drive, across the Sierra Nevada, then south along the east side… We chose Bishop as our “jumping off” point… Bishop, in the Owens Valley, once a high desert garden, but thanks to Los Angeles and its thirst for water, now just high desert.

It is still winter in the high Sierra… and many of the mountain passes are closed… so we are forced to drive either north, crossing at Hwy 88 or 50, or south over the Tehachapis or via Walker Pass.    We have chosen the northern route…  this afternoon found us headed over Carson Pass, 8,500 feet high, into the Carson Valley near Minden Nevada… We note that for winter, there isn't much snow... Steph questioned the lack of snow at about 6,000 feet... as we passed the first, abet very dirty snow bank.  Even over 8,000 feet while there was general covereage, it wasn't very deep, and there were bare spots... It is looking a lot like a drought again...

Over the top, down along the Carson River, into Nevada, we reach the Metropolis of Minden... a town with a round about (aka traffic circle...) I believe the moment Minden got a traffic circle the Myth of the Wild West ended, and it is all down hill from here...  From Minden we headed south on Highway 395… (our Google directions said “take Hwy 395 south for 156 miles, and our motel would be on the right…“)

For most of the drive we were still at high elevation… 7,000 feet or so… only dropping significantly in the last 20 miles as we approached Bishop.  We passed Topaz Lake, we passed the Marine Corp Alpine training facility, we passed Bridgeport and Mono Lake...   The road to Bodie was closed, apparently due to snow, but no snow was in evidence...  We passed Long Valley with Lake Crowley, a volcanic caldera, then for miles drive through the Bishop Tuft, the ash deposit from the caldera as we drop down Sherwin Grade into Bishop.   With the lower elevation the temperature rose, to a comfortable 60 or so, even as the sun set…  We found our motel… We started a search for a restaurant… via Yelp, Trip Adviser, Google…  We found a couple of good Mexican places, tried “Amigos” and were satisfied… (the smoked jalapenio sauce for the tamale is the stuff of legends... it tasted hot and smoky, but also sweet, as if it contained rasberries or something)

Now back at the motel… Andrew and Lisa are somewhere about… likely at dinner…

Tomorrow the adventure starts… into the desert… a stop at Keeler California, Once the terminal of the SP narrow gauge, but now without the railroad, just one of the most unfortunate and downtrodden places I have ever visited, with dilapidated houses, weather beaten single wides (aka old, crappy, nasty trailers), few trees and many barking dogs… all covered in alkali dust… but still compelling enough to require a repeat visit.

Beyond Keeler, we will climb the Panimints to Panimit Springs where we will be making camp.  But for now, we are in Bishop… we have eaten,.. Andrew and Lisa have eaten,.. They have found us, and we sit and talk and consume beer…