After our vacation
week at the Bear’s Lair, we drove home
by way of Mono Lake,
Mammoth Mountain,
Devil’s Postpile and Rainbow Falls,
and Yosemite.
To get there, we drove on highway 108 from
Pinecrest
over Sonora pass (elevation 9625 feet) through the
Emigrant Wilderness and past the
Marines’ Mountain Warfare Training
Center. We ate lunch at the historic
Bridgeport Inn (formerly
the Leavitt House where
Mark Twain stayed).
After lunch, we drove past a big fire at Lee Vining, then walked around the
Panum Crater, near
Mono Lake. Panum is an ancient volcanic cone with great splashes of black and
gray obsidian and pumice rising in spires in the center. Unfortunately, some
aggressive wasps have built their nests in the spires. When my nephew
Daniel was stung, we did not try to go further in to see more of the cone.
After Mono Lake, we drove to the town of Mammoth Lake and our hotel. The next
day, we hiked to Devil’s Postpile and Rainbow Falls. We took the park bus from
the
Mammoth Mountain ski resort to the Devil’s Postpile trail head because
of our truck’s suspension problems. Sadly, John could not come with us because he
was working with the truck repair shop. The Postpile is an amazing cliff of
dark grey basalt columns that do indeed look like many-sided posts.
Throughout this area are historical markers by the road. Most of these
informative signs are cast in metal and set in rock mounds to protect them
from weather and traffic. Here is the text on one at Sonora Pass:
SONORA MONO TOLL ROAD / Oldest of the trans-Sierra emigrant trails to
California is spectacular Sonora Pass crossed by Highway 108, second
highest (9,626 Feet) of all highway crossings of the range. The Bartleson-Bidwell
Party, with mules, horses and oxen, made the first crossing on October 18,
1841. This route was not attempted by wagons until 1852. “Grizzly”
Adams took the trail over Sonora Pass in April, 1854, and reported “On all
sides lay old axle trees and wheels…. melancholy evidence of the last
season’s disasters.” The present route first projected in 1862 was finally
completed as a toll road, due to the extreme cost, by Mono, Tuolumne, and
Stanislaus Counties in 1865. It was said to take three weeks for a six-horse
team to make the round trip between Sonora and Bridgeport. / PLAQUE DEDICATED
SEPTEMBER 10, 1983 / BODIE CHAPTER NO. 64 / MATUCA CHAPTER NO. 1849 /
E CLAMPUS VITUS
It was interesting to compare the mammoth statue at the Mammoth Mountain
ski resort to the stuffed elephant we saw at the Washington D.C.
Smithsonian Museum
of Natural History in June.
Ascending to Sonora Pass
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Paul reading Sonora Pass marker
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Matt and Jessica
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Descending from Sonora Pass
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Marines Mountain Warfare Center
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Lee Vining, Tioga Lodge fire
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Mono Lake from Panum Crater
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Panum Crater Rocks
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Climbing inside Panum Crater
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Devil’s Postpile
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Paul on top of Devil’s Postpile
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Basalt Posts
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Rainbow Falls
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Successful Hikers, Rainbow Falls
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Mammoth Mtn Again
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Mammoth Mountain Statue
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Stuffed Elephant
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On to Yosemite
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Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher
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