Day 2: After having a breakfast of mini-donuts and loading up the KLRs, we
headed north out of Bishop on the 395 to the intersection of the 395 and the
6. We took the 6 north towards dirt and adventure while the 395 headed west
towards long boring straightaways filled with Winnebagos.
A little way after the split, there is a road sign that says "Providence
town, RI, 3205 miles". Nice to see someone in the highway department has a
sense of humor.
From here, we wound our way to Casa Diablo road. For those of you that speak
Spanish, you know this means "Really bitchin' road". Casa Diablo Road is a
23 1/2 mile 4 lane wide dirt road that is perfectly graded, and you can haul
ass down it and flat track around it's wide open corners that generally have
great visibility. It's a little washboarded in places, but once you hit
about 45 mph, you kind of float over all that garbage. The road traverses
the Volcanic Tableland and varies in elevation from 4200-7600 feet. I
believe that the higher elevations are near the northern end of the road, in
the Inyo National Forest.
At the end of this road, we hit the benton Crossing road and headed north.
The next route I had mapped out was the Kelty Meadows trail to Sawmill
Meadow road. After riding straight past the entrance to Kelty Meadows, I
made a U-turn and went back to exit the pavement once more at the correct
place. I should point out that I was navigating, Krok was following me
blind. He could not open the GPS routing files I had sent to him due to
software incompatibilities. Probably due to John Kerry somehow. (kidding!)
Anyhoo, I got us completely lost and into some steep and deep (apologies to
Warren Miller) stuff. Steep roads, and deep sand. Winding our way back down
the hill towards Lake Crowley, we were treated to some incredible vistas of
the lake and the Sierras beyond, and some world class cursing and punching
our gas tanks in frustration. Friggin' fully loaded KLRs aren't much fun to
ride downhill in deep sand. Piece of sh*t bike keep wanting to swap ends!
Must be our valve seals ! (Kidding again!)
After much hoo haa, we wound up circumnavigating Lake Crowley, hitting the
395 for a spell, until we turned off at the June Lake Loop.
It was lunchtime, so like a pair of geniuses (genii?), we ate at the first
restaurant we came to on the loop. Our waiter's name was Bogdan (not the
lister), he was a Polish gent, and the cook's name was probably Juan (he
spoke no English, Bogdan spoke no Spanish, you can see where this is going,
right?). We enjoyed the world's crappiest $9.00 salad, $4 Bud Light, and a
barely passable BLT. Note: Don't stop at the first place you come to in a
town, no matter how hungry you are.
Revitalized, we continued our trek northward to return to the 395. June Lake
Loop is pretty neat, beautiful country, and lots of clear alpine lakes. Nice
place.
Hitting the 395 past Mono Lake, we took off on the 167 eastbound toward
Cottonwood Canyon, the back door to Bodie ghost town. I should mention at
this point that all of the dirt roads we had been hitting were almost
totally devoid of traffic. I don't remember seeing any cars at all on a lot
of these roads.
This was a great route into Bodie, which is a very well preserved ghost town
that is now a State Historic Park. Which means it cost $3 to get in. I would
like to have more time to check out Bodie, but it was very full of folks and
we had lots more adventuring to do. After about 45 minutes, a whiz, and a
picture break, we were off again. But not the way we came in, and not down
the tourist entrance either, dammit!
We headed north on the graded dirt Bodie-Masonic road for about 15 miles,
passing two oblivious SUV types on the way, then headed west on Aurora
Canyon road , which brought us to the 182 on the shore of Bridgeport Lake.
After ripping past these folks in trucks, it became very clear to me that
you can see 10 times as much of the country on a bike as you can in a truck.
They were traveling maybe 15 mph in a fully enclosed environment, we were
ripping at 30-55 mph, out in the world, not in a bubble, living the dream,
baby! But I digress...
After this, we headed north on the 395 (Boo-rring) to the 89 (peg dragger's
heaven) to Lake Tahoe for the night.
We walked into Stateline for dinner and some short term limited research
high risk investing (gambling), then walked back to the hotel for the
night..
CA Stu
A14