Monday (Sep 25)
When I became semi-conscious in the morning and turned over, my internal clock told me it was 9 – 9:30 … but the REAL clock said it was 11 – yikes! I can still get everything ready and get to where I need to in the daylight today, but I’d like to get a better start than that!
Getting “everything” done took till 2:30 – shower, eat, put a hold on my mail, order sandwich pickup, carry everything down to the van, organize it a little, pick up a the house a little. It goes quicker when I pre-carry some stuff the day before, but I didn’t quite get that together yesterday.
I had a nice little ham and cheese danish (?? – I know, should be croissant, but it was flat and round like a danish :) that I had saved from the Jungle. I hoped it might last me long enough to make it to my beloved Steak and Egg Special at Topaz Casino, and it did!
Getting out of Reno was uneventful (the best way!), then I had my maiden voyage on the final extension of the Carson City bypass! The I-560 freeway – really just US 395 re-done to interstate specifications – makes heading south a breeze … until you get to Minden/Gardnerville, a 25 mph speed trap, where it still sucks big time.
By the time I got to Minden it was what passes for rush hour around here, so traffic was pretty heavy. There was a truck which belched black smoke every time it accelerated, which was every block. Isn’t that illegal nowadays? Anyway, I made it my mission to be one car ahead of that dude. It was ugly for a few blocks, but once I got there I mellowed out again.
I got to the casino about 4, where I got a nice little slice of Topaz Lake community local color. There is a Monday night $6.95 Prime Rib Special starting at 4:30, and boy are the locals into that!
I am seated at my spectacular window seat, and the place is already filling up. The old couple (i.e.my age) at the next table ordered their prime rib early and got a couple of drinks to wait till 4:30 when the magic happens. I was tempted, but didn’t feel like waiting the extra ten minutes, so I stuck to my usual; the always awesome $5.95 rib-eye steak breakfast.
By the time my meal came, the entire dining room was full of pairs and quartets of older folks, some drinking, some nursing their giant iced teas, all sitting at tables that were perfectly empty or nibbling at their salads. Then at 4:30:00 the prime rib plates started rolling out of the kitchen. They seemed pretty good about first come first served. The folks who were already there when I sat down got theirs first, then the nice old folks next table … soon everyone was carving up their slab of beef. There was a waiting list and people milling around outside the restaurant when I left. Never seen that here! Sort of festive really :)
I thought I might be done with road repair traffic stops, since I’m not driving 299 to Eureka any more, but here I was, at quite a long wait for road resurfacing at the town of Coleville.
Between my late start, the long wait at Prime Rib Night, and this stoppage, I’ve got about an hour of daylight left. Instead of pressing on to Buckeye as I had planned, I will stop a half-hour earlier at:
WHUFU page for: Chris Flat Campground
Nestled between too-busy US 395 and the West Walker River. Everybody is either a fishermen or folks bombing down 395. The first nice federal campground coming south from Reno.
This place should be open more days of the year - closes too early in the fall, opens too late in the summer.
tonight:
There were very few sites left at 5:40 on a September Monday, so I ended up at Site 1, the first one after the pay station. It's actually quite nice. Large and level and relatively nice river access right across the road.
Can't escape the highway noise though.
Most spaces are taken tonight. It’s very quiet though, I guess everyone is tucked away in their heated RVs after a hard day of fishing. Quiet except for the big rigs blasting down 395.
I set my chair up across the road overlooking the river and had an excellent time typing this and using the weak phone reception to keep up with our messed-up world. It’s very cold.
Tuesday
It was a VERY cold night! I got tired of the noisy heater blasting all night, so at some point I turned off the heat and burrowed deeper into the covers. A little after sunrise the indoor/outdoor temp read 45°/24°. Cold! I turned the heat on for a couple of cycles to get to the point where the sun took over and warmed inside and outside.
I ate in Bridgeport at the Sportsman’s Cafe, which was pretty good! No breakfast, but they have wifi and their mushroom burger with fries and coffee was close enough to breakfast.
I tried to imagine driving this road for the first time; trying to remember my impressions of the first time oh so long ago, to give myself the proper spirit of awe for how beautiful it is. The part from Walker to Bridgeport is pretty cool, but the part from Bridgeport to Mono Lake is world-class spectacular!
The valley leading up to Conway Summit is a renowned fall color spot. Just a little early, but the aspens have the tiniest twinge of yellow in their green, or at least I choose to think so.
Stop at the summit overlook of Mono Lake, Don’t even get out, just soak it up for a minute. Explore Lee Vining a bit to see what’s new, what’s open and what’s already closed for the season, then it’s off to the June Lake Loop.
WHUFU page for: Gull Lake Campground
Finally I am staying here! I have camped across the road at Reverse Creek Campground a couple of times, Gull Lake has always been full. The lake is beautiful and the campground is right next to it. Half the sites are right on the lake.
A few hundred yard walk through the trees brings you to the town of June Lake and the main Gull Lake marina. Snacks, library with wifi, brewery up the hill - awesome!
The campground itself is kind of shabby and run-down and gives the impression that the concessionaires are just milking it for revenue ... surprise!
tonight:
I got the second to last spot today. Not very level, but I'm happy to be here.
They have changed to payment system so that one does NOT register at the "iron ranger", one occupies the spot and waits for the collector - weird.
It was kind of a drama getting settled, but it all worked out. #4 was perfect – level, it’s own lake access 20 feet away, and completely empty. Its tag however said it was taken through tomorrow. #5 is open, but not level and less great in all ways. Good citizen that I am I settled into #5. BUT, I haven’t paid yet because of their weird new system.
I kept thinking … and walked down to #4. The neighbor was back now. He said the site is for sure empty, the other fellow got a call from work and had to go home. Tough for him, great for me. I more to #4!
This is clearly the perfect chance to give my new, smaller kayak a trial run. It went really well! It pack into a much smaller bundle, it’s way lighter to carry and inflates in a tenth of the time of the Selyvor Rio I had bought but never used for all the above reasons.
I didn’t go far, just noodled around within 100 yards of my entry point. 1. Because I am a risk-averse fraidy cat and don’t have a life preserver or any kind of safety equipment, and 2. because I needed to stay around in case the Camp Host came by.
Of course they did, so I “hopped out” of the kayak to intercept them and negotiate about “double booking” Site 4. It was probably pretty funny watching me scrabble out of the kayak with my gimpy wrist.
After we got all that straightened out I walked over to June Lake and the brewery for a very tasty 20 oz pale ale. I walked home along the highway after dark, which wasn’t too fun, but got back safely.
Wednesday
29° at sunrise, not as cold as last night. I could tell in bed – the heater wasn’t pounding away nearly as hard as last night.
My entertainment this morning was watching my industrious neighbor getting all his huge amount of stuff shipshape and squared away to leave today. He was a very nice fellow, probably at least as old as me, and I think, quite a bit more energetic. He said this was the first week of a three week stay he was doing along 395, timed of course for the fall colors. That got me thinking condo-selling thoughts again, how if I was not paying 50-ish $/day to maintain my condo I too could very easily plan three week interludes down here in God’s Country, or two week hot springs tours ofIdaho or five week escapes to the Oregon coast in summer, Nice thought! Although he had a shitload of gear, inflatable dinghy, fishing gear, cooking gear, he has way less basic infrastructure than me. I think he was sleeping in his SUV.
Since this place has good phone reception I ran Personal Hotspot all night and morning, and the good old Mono County Tourist Facebook page told me to go to a place called Sagehen Summit for the very first epic fall colors of the season! A little research told me that Sagehen Summit is a 20-ish mile side trip – back towards Mono Lake then east on 120 for 18 miles.
The half-empty verdict is that the colors weren’t that big a deal and not worth the drive, but the half-full verdict is that I had a very interesting drive through a part of the valley I haven’t seen for years, and the actual Sagehen Summit overlook is a cool little locals spot I otherwise never would’ve seen. As we know, I am a half-full kind of guy.
Back when I had the Tacoma with the camper shell I drove this road a couple of times. Benton Springs is at the other end and I would always stop there and look around at the abandoned stores and check out the outside of hot spring, … which it never quite worked out for me to go to. The town is kind of an occupied ghost town is such a thing is semantically possible. It’s a very interesting drive.
In information display at Mono Mills tells me this is the largest contiguous Jeffery Pine forest in the world – which in practice means the eastern Sierras since this is where they grow. They lumbered the fuck out of the Jeffery pines for the Bodie mines. This is the ruins of an old sawmill/railhead, pretty cool.
By now I’m pretty hungry and spacey, not even any coffee yet, so it’s Mammoth time! I end up at Delicious Kitchen again. The food is really very good, but man the servers are just terrible. The fellow works so hard putting out a quality food product, then lets it be served by random dudes that just don’t give a fuck. He really oughta tighten that up.
Shop at Von’s – this year’s Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest is out and it’s very good, so I get myself a 12-pack. Then the short drive to:
WHUFU page for: Convict Lake Campground
Large campground at the foot of Convict Lake. Really cool place, mountains on three sides, nice little bite-sized hike around the perimeter of the lake (2.6 miles). Quite popular, but it's a big campground so there are usually open sites.
Downtown Mammoth is fifteen minutes away.
tonight:
As happens all too frequently with privately operated USFS campgrounds, they raise the price a dollar or two every year. Gotta make a profit! ... off of public land bought and maintained with my taxes.
I took the loop hike around the lake, which is breathtakingly scenic.
I nailed a great spot, two sites up from where I was last time, on the edge of the meadow looking directly at the mountains … which reminds me to Be Thankful. When I was here this time last year, I was in the throes of a serious bout of asthma. I could barely make it to the pay station. A month ago on my Oregon trip I couldn’t walk very well, couldn’t do much of anything very well, so I am just pleased as punch to be feeling frisky enough to take on a nearly three mile hike!
The Convict Lake Loop is a pretty spectacular trail. I chose to go counter-clockwise, starting at the northeast corner, at the Marina. The picnic area road extends about a third of the way along the south side, so if darkness catches up with me I’ll be on pavement sooner going this direction.
The north side was beautiful but uneventful, Met a few hikers going the other way, got passed by a few energetic souls going much faster than I. On both sides of the lake the trail is 20-40′ above the water, but on the west side where the mountain streams feed the lake the trail kind of diffuses into wandering paths along the shoreline. Very pretty. Then there was a boardwalk over 100 yards or so of rocks, which are apparently flooded in the spring. Then it got very interesting because the boardwalk was washed out at the main flood of the creek.
Beautiful, really. Bridge washed out, very exciting.
Pretty ladies gave me a ride. I think I worried them. I did kind of overdo it. I am a sweaty mess and no shower on the agenda for three more days :<
I felt like I had to take extra good care of myself after that, so after staying outside till after dark I came inside and cranked the heat up rather than just gutting it out with the chilly feeling as I usually do.
Thursday
I finally slept pretty well, for the first time on this trip. Gettin in the groove!
On the other, un-groovy hand, the sun is dazzlingly bright and I am having this weird “buzzing in the ears” I often get from the combination of very dry air and high altitude. I finish up my morning routine, then hang and read and just admire the beautiful situation for a few minutes before heading off to Looney Beans.
My plan to eat there was thwarted because they only had healthy breakfast burritos left (not cool). I made do with three cups of coffee and a cheese croissant (which looked and felt like a danish). The barrista recommended a place called Salsa’s for getting a burrito to go, so that’s what I did. Great recommendation! For $9.50, got a HUGE carne asada burrito that pretty much over-filled me. Still kind of buzzy…
Driving up 395 I remember that I must get diesel before heading into the mountains! I’m already well out of Mammoth, so the easiest thing to do is not turn west on 120 but to continue on the extra mile into Lee Vining. I only got 9.5 gallons, since it’s more than $1/gal pricier over here than it will be over there in Gold Country.
WHUFU page for: Tioga Lake Campground
Elevation: 9,700 ft
The first campground after leaving Yosemite at Tioga Pass. You see the lake pretty much when you leave the park, and the campground is near where the lake level used to be before climate change and the LA Water Authority stole all the water. There is a spectacular view up the valley and some way down the valley.
It was full at 5:30 on a September Monday,
Most of the sites are paired up, their two parking places together then separate paths to the picnic table and tent area for each. Not the greatest for van living, although the parking spot net to #2 is good.
tonight:
Finally, I score a site here! It's about a week before Fall Color madness, and I got here about 3:30, and three out of the ten sites are open. I scored the one in the edge, so I have van-door privacy, so I'm pretty happy.
If I stayed up here a few days I would probably get used to it, but first night sleeping at 10,000′ is pretty uncomfortable for me. I looked at the post for when I slept at Toulomene Meadows and it was the same. Anyway, it’s fucking spectacular up here!
The lake is quite a bit smaller than Convict, so in theory it should be an easier hike around, but with the altitude I’m not feeling it. I do walk over to the east end of the lake, where the setting sun hits full-on. That involves walking up the hill to the highway shoulder, so I get breathless enough just doing that. Many of the cars pulling over to take pictures seems to be in packs, which turn out to be roving bands of Asian tourists. I tend to assume they are Japanese from years ago, but when I look I think they are actually Chinese now … whatever …
There is some daylight left when I get back, so I take my chair and my laptop over to a little point of land on the water and hang out till after sunset.