There is no better kept secret than the incredible scenery along
Highway 395 that follows the amazing eastern escarpment of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains.
There is no better kept secret than the incredible scenery along Highway 395 that follows the amazing eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Last week, I wrote about the first part of a trip I took this spring through a portion of the southern California desert. On this second portion, we turned our sights north to the Owens Valley where the headlining attraction would become the dramatic scenery of the eastern Sierra.
The Sierras rise gradually when approached from the west, but from their crest to the Owens Valley on the east side the drop is world-class precipitous. Think you have to travel to the Alps, Himalayas or Andes to see mountain peaks towering two miles over your head? Think again. You can be filling up with gas in Lone Pine (3,733) while you gaze at the summit of Mt. Whitney (14,495) perhaps 15 miles away as the crow flies.
Highway 395 (www.395.com) follows the eastern escarpment of the Sierras down the Owens Valley which is bounded on its eastern side by the Inyo and White Mountains, a mountain range that boasts its own 14,000 peak. The result is jaw-dropping scenery, even if you never leave the car.
Entering the Owens Valley, our first stop was the Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center on the south end of Lone Pine. In addition to a great view of the Sierra peaks, there are hundreds of books, maps and handouts to answer any questions about the region.
Our questions answered and new books in hand, we headed north, nine miles past Lone Pine to the site of Manzanar, one of two California’s (and the nation’s first) Japanese Relocation Camps where more than 11,000 people were interned during World War II. Not much remains; a stone guardhouse in front and the cemetery in the rear of the property. The National Park Service is now rebuilding the Manzanar High School Auditorium to act as an interpretive center and park headquarters.
Six miles further north in Independence, we saw many photographs of life at Manzanar at the Eastern California Museum. The obvious warmth, dignity and resilience of the people in those photographs contrast dramatically with that cold austere place under the shadow of Mt. Williamson.
The short day hike we took up Symmes Creek toward Shepherd Pass highlighted the contrasts of this region where the Sierras abruptly meet the desert. In a single step, we left the wide open, softly sloped desert of the Owens Valley and entered a narrow mountain gorge pinching a raging stream. Sagebrush was replaced with Pinyon and Jeffrey Pines. The wide open sky of the valley was trimmed to a sliver by granite ramparts overhead. The warm, partly cloudy day in the valley became a snow flurry a mile into the mountains.
That night, we rolled out our sleeping bags among the Creosote bushes on the east side of the valley hoping for a dramatic sunrise on the Sierra escarpment the next morning. And, oh my, we got it. We saw the first crimson light of dawn ignite the breaking clouds, fresh snow and serrated mountains from Mt. Whitney in the south to Mammoth Mountain in the north, a distance of over 100 miles. It was all right there, close enough to touch.
We spent our last evening among the rounded rock outcroppings of the Alabama Hills west of Lone Pine and beneath Mt. Whitney. The landscape along Movie Road will look familiar to anyone who grew up with Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger. Hundreds of movies were filmed there including “Gunga Din,” “How the West Was Won,” “Maverick,” “Rawhide” and “Hopalong Cassidy.”
Getting to Highway 395 and the eastside of the Sierras isn’t easy, but it pays great dividends. It is a blessing to mountaineers and a curse to motorists that there are no passes between Tioga Pass in Yosemite and Walker Pass east of Bakersfield. Matters are complicated further by the fact that Tioga and Sonora Passes are closed in winter. When considering a visit, known that in summer, there are more tourists and the Owens Valley will be hot. Things are milder and quieter in spring when the wildflowers bloom, as well as in the fall when the aspens and cottonwoods ignite.
