Rainbow water fall through volcanic landscape.
There are good reasons to clean up your the photos you’ve uploaded to your computer. A vacation trip of pictures I thought was lost was found in an obscure file. It had been my son’s singular obsession in eighth grade to visit the ancient bristlecone forest in the White Mountains of California. So we turned that simple little wish into a short family vacation hitting some really cool spots along Hwy 395 in eastern California.
If you like geological wonders, Hwy 395 south of Lake Tahoe has plenty of natural awe inspiring places to visit. Home base for some of our short excursions was a little Bed and Breakfast in Bishop. The town of Bishop is pretty cool in itself.
It was a short drive up to Schulman’s grove in the White
Owens Valley in the distance behind the bristlecone pine.
Mountains for a morning of hiking around some of the old living trees on earth. The bristlecone pine survive on little water in dolomite soil at 8,000′ +. The elevation and aridity limit the number of pests that can attact the tree. The gnarled old trunks combined grand vistas make the hike around the forest spectacular.
We also stopped at Mammoth Mountain to hike through Devil’s Postpile and other volcanic landscapes. Rainbow Falls was a short walk from Devil’s Postpile and an unexpected viewing pleasure that we had not planned on.
Handful of brine shrimp at Mono Lake.
Right up the road was Mono Lake. On the hot afternoon we decided to wade into the salty water. All around were boils of brine shrimp coming up through the shallow water in clouds. We cupped our hand and lifted out some of the brine shrimp to say hello.
Overall, this was a pretty inexpensive trip to see some once in a lifetime sights clustered together on the eastern side of California.
