10 May ‘07
Thursday
After having a good nights sleep in Lone Pine we awoke to another sunny day to start the next leg or our journey to Carson City. Driving along side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains has been an on-going beautiful site. Those mountains run as high as 14000 feet, which are Mt Whitney and a lot of the others tower above us at 12000. Between us and the Sierra Nevada Mountains are the light brown foot hills called the “Alabama Hills”. All the towns that we pass through have an old time western story to tell. The first people to inhabit this area were the Paiute and the Shoshone, but it wasn’t long before the settlers started to come in and start their search for all that gold. Well today the gold is not a thing that you find much of around here, but for a lot of years following the gold this area was real big in the western movies. Today that big draw is Mammoth Mountain (Elev 8,000 ft.) and all that goes with it summer to winter. Just a few days ago fishing season opened in California and the lakes and streams on this side of the mountains are seeing a lot of anglers catching a lot of fish. The Diaz Lake we camped beside on Tuesday showed a lot of fishermen catching a lot of fish. This morning Louise and I went for a 3 ½ mile hike around Convict Lake and the same was happening there. Convict Lake, which is at the base of Morrison Mountain (10,045 feet) got it’s name because of a team of 4 convicts broke out of a state prison and found their way to a cave in a mountain above a lake. A State Marshal by the name of Morrison took 6 deputized men as a posse and went looking for these “convicts”. Well they found them in that cave but in the process of taking them in to custody State Marshal Morrison was killed. Now you see how the mountain got its name of Morrison Mountain and the lake at the bottom…Convict Lake. Our second hike of 4 miles took us to Mary’s Lake that sat high up in Mammoth Mountain. Then we had a third hike as well. It wasn’t but a half mile and took us to see a series of hot springs that spilled into a small river. These springs were so hot that they wouldn’t let you get closer than 75 yards to any one of them. Up until last June it was possible to get right down to the river, but after a couple of deaths from being “Boiled Alive”, they shut it down to those 75 yards. After 3 hikes we thought we would end the day with just one more…did I say “We” decided ??? Well I can’t let my little wifey go on a 4 mile hike alone in the big ole woods, even if I had already hiked about 8 miles with her, now can I ??? Just kidding, we did have another hike but it was another half mile hike in and out of the woods. This time we explored a “fissure” that was as deep as 20 feet and as long as a mile or more. You could see were one side of the fissure split away from the other and left almost identical markings on each. If they were to come back together it would almost be a perfect fit all along the way. Now our day isn’t over yet…Mammoth Mountain is a PRIME ski area so we went up to the slopes to watch some of the skiers. Times have really changed on the hills because most (90 per cent) were snowboarders. Mammoth has a huge jump for them as well as a long “half pipe”. Both of these attractions were getting a ton of use. We really enjoyed the show. How do you cap off a day like this??? Louise gathered a couple of arm loads of wood and lots of Pine cones for a campfire so that we could roast hot dogs and treat ourselves to SMORES … that’s how you cap off a busy day of hiking and exploring.
Thursday
After having a good nights sleep in Lone Pine we awoke to another sunny day to start the next leg or our journey to Carson City. Driving along side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains has been an on-going beautiful site. Those mountains run as high as 14000 feet, which are Mt Whitney and a lot of the others tower above us at 12000. Between us and the Sierra Nevada Mountains are the light brown foot hills called the “Alabama Hills”. All the towns that we pass through have an old time western story to tell. The first people to inhabit this area were the Paiute and the Shoshone, but it wasn’t long before the settlers started to come in and start their search for all that gold. Well today the gold is not a thing that you find much of around here, but for a lot of years following the gold this area was real big in the western movies. Today that big draw is Mammoth Mountain (Elev 8,000 ft.) and all that goes with it summer to winter. Just a few days ago fishing season opened in California and the lakes and streams on this side of the mountains are seeing a lot of anglers catching a lot of fish. The Diaz Lake we camped beside on Tuesday showed a lot of fishermen catching a lot of fish. This morning Louise and I went for a 3 ½ mile hike around Convict Lake and the same was happening there. Convict Lake, which is at the base of Morrison Mountain (10,045 feet) got it’s name because of a team of 4 convicts broke out of a state prison and found their way to a cave in a mountain above a lake. A State Marshal by the name of Morrison took 6 deputized men as a posse and went looking for these “convicts”. Well they found them in that cave but in the process of taking them in to custody State Marshal Morrison was killed. Now you see how the mountain got its name of Morrison Mountain and the lake at the bottom…Convict Lake. Our second hike of 4 miles took us to Mary’s Lake that sat high up in Mammoth Mountain. Then we had a third hike as well. It wasn’t but a half mile and took us to see a series of hot springs that spilled into a small river. These springs were so hot that they wouldn’t let you get closer than 75 yards to any one of them. Up until last June it was possible to get right down to the river, but after a couple of deaths from being “Boiled Alive”, they shut it down to those 75 yards. After 3 hikes we thought we would end the day with just one more…did I say “We” decided ??? Well I can’t let my little wifey go on a 4 mile hike alone in the big ole woods, even if I had already hiked about 8 miles with her, now can I ??? Just kidding, we did have another hike but it was another half mile hike in and out of the woods. This time we explored a “fissure” that was as deep as 20 feet and as long as a mile or more. You could see were one side of the fissure split away from the other and left almost identical markings on each. If they were to come back together it would almost be a perfect fit all along the way. Now our day isn’t over yet…Mammoth Mountain is a PRIME ski area so we went up to the slopes to watch some of the skiers. Times have really changed on the hills because most (90 per cent) were snowboarders. Mammoth has a huge jump for them as well as a long “half pipe”. Both of these attractions were getting a ton of use. We really enjoyed the show. How do you cap off a day like this??? Louise gathered a couple of arm loads of wood and lots of Pine cones for a campfire so that we could roast hot dogs and treat ourselves to SMORES … that’s how you cap off a busy day of hiking and exploring.