From Lone Pine to Susanville

Our journey for the day

Here's the view from across the street from our decidedly pedestrian motel as the sun rose in Lone Pine Tuesday morning. Not so pedestrian after all. 

And behind the motel -- nobody told the bunnies!

The Sierras seen from California 395

Horsetail Falls on the June Lakes Loop

 

 

 Silver Lake on the June Lakes Loop

Grant Lake

Mono Lake in Lee Vining, a million-year-old lake with water twice as salty as the ocean, decorated with weird and lovely "tufa towers" made of calcium-carbonate, that grow out of the lake water because of interaction between freshwater springs and the minerals in the lake water.  Several ospreys thought the towers were put there for their convenience as nesting platforms.

Heading onwards on California 395.  Around every bend, another splendid landscape appears.

After Devil's Gate Pass, Route 395 runs through a beautiful canyon alongside the glorious West Walker River.  In the 1990s, a devastating flood washed down the river, taking with it all of the canyon's pines, cottonwoods and other vegetation and destroying 10 miles of Route 395.  The road was rebuilt in six months and the greenery began to grow back, but a fire in 2002 destroyed it all over again.  That's in the past now and the place is wild, pristine and indescribably lovely.