Sometimes I find really interesting things by seeing a road sign on the route to somewhere else and thinking, "Huh, we should check that out." Such a serendipty occurred on the drive to Navy Beach at Mono Lake one Monday afternoon. "Panum Crater" a small brown sign read, pointing left to a hill between the road and Mono Lake. We didn't skip Mono ( Read more... )

What do you do after an awesome day-hike like our trek to Ruby Lake? Well, what we did was enjoy a nice dinner and relax in our hotel room that night. The next morning we enjoyed a soak in the hot tub (we were too tired to do it the night before!) then packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, and set out with plans for more hiking ( Read more... )

I said I would do it and I meant it. I am catching up on pictures- and video- from hiking back in June. Recall we took a three-day weekend in mid-June and drove out to the eastern Sierra. That was an adventure in itself, including a literal midnight drive through Yosemite and road construction at 9,000'.

Our first hike that weekend was at Black ( Read more... )

Monday morning we got up a bit earlier than Sunday, having slept a bit more soundly Sunday night than Saturday. The uber-dry air continued to be a challenge for both of us but we'd gotten partially acclimated. Just in time to go home ( Read more... )

I wrote last night about our late arrival in Lee Vining. Doing a "Friday Night All The Way" thing didn't work out quite as well as I planned because I didn't sleep well. The bed was uncomfortable, the pillows were uncomfortable, and the room temperature changed a lot on its own. Like, at 5am it suddenly got really warm, so warm that I woke up ( Read more... )

Sunday, 1 Oct 2017. 5pm.

Once we hiked out to the tufa towers at Mono Lake we stayed for a while. The setting sun provided nice lighting, its deeply angled and gold tinted rays highlighting the bizarre rock structures to make them seem even more unusual.


( Read more... )

Sunday, 1 Oct 2017. 4:30pm.

After finishing up our hike to stunning Crystal Lake earlier today we ate a late lunch in the town of Mammoth Lakes (alas all those views we drank in along the hike weren't enough to sustain us) and drove north about 30 miles to Mono Lake.

Mono Lake is actually a lake, and a fairly big one at about 10 miles across. ( Read more... )