A weekend in the White Mountains

When we left Bishop, we only had an hours drive North to get to our next week-long destination. Sure, we could have just driven those miles and be done with it, but where is the adventure in that? So, we took the long way to get there – by way of Nevada!

Once again we found ourselves backtracking a bit, just a few miles into Big Pine where we showered at the local gas station slash hardware store. All freshened up, we took off East, up the White Mountain Range to go visit the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Kerri had been here before, and I came close to coming all the way out way back, but did not make the full drive. This time it was my turn to experience a new place with Kerri showing me around. Since we had no need for Internet for the next few days, we knew we would be camping up top, near the Bristlecones so we scouted as we drove up to the 9000 ft high Visitor’s Center (closed).

After a short hike among these ancient trees (and snow) we started back down the road to a dirt path that was earmarked for us to explore for camping that night. We saw dozens of great places to camp, complete with fire rings and tables! We didn’t know at the time, but we basically just came in the back entrance of the established campground up there. So, we stayed a night at 8500 feet (our highest night in 2018 so far) among a grove of very buffed Juniper trees. We expected some serious cold that night being so high up, but in the end our fears were unwarranted. Overnight temps were very mild and so was the morning.

Scouting Google Maps a day before, I had spotted an interesting site back on Highway 168 so we set off to find out what it is. An array of satellite dishes is all I could see on the maps. We drove out the dirt road leading us off the main highway only to come to a closed gate a short distance later. This was all public land, and there were no signs saying we could not enter, but we would have to do so on foot. A short half-mile walk later and we were at the GPS coordinates, but there was nothing around. We explored the area but found that the site must have been shut down and restored back to how nature intended it. Afterward we fond out that it was the site of the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) – a 23-antenna to study the origins of planets, stars and galaxies, as well as to measure the distortions in the cosmic microwave background caused by clusters of galaxies formed soon after the big bang. It was shut down back in 2015. It was nice to see how thoroughly they cleaned up the area I must admit. The only trace that anything was ever up here was the open spaces filled with this very alien-like weed.

We kept driving East, eventually crossing into Nevada where we stopped in for a quick lunch in Dyer, NV at the only dive bar in the tiny town. We had no idea where we were going to camp that night, but some green areas on the map ahead of us gave us some ideas. Worst case scenario is that we would make it all the way back into Mammoth Lakes on Highway 395 and stay there an extra day. Kerri came up with a grand idea though.

We have been trying to book us a night or two at Benton Hot Springs the past few times we have been along the 395 corridor, but every time we can not get a reservation. We tried just last week and failed too, but since we would be passing right through the town anyway we decided to pop in to see if there was a cancellation. When Kerri asked she was informed that a reservation was canceled only 5 minutes before we arrived. Only one minute later another couple showed up asking about a cancellation as well. Literally, there was a 6 minute window in which we could have grabbed up this cancellation and we stumbled right into it. Next thing we new we were tub-side of our own private hot spring which we spent hours in that night. It was a perfect way to top off the long day’s driving and exploring.