Lone Pine to Laurel Lakes - Things don't always go according to plan.

[KSL22]

Intro:
I was itching to get out and explore. I have been lurking on here for awhile, reading and soaking in all the trip stories and locations. I have been creating a mental bucket list of all the places I want to...scratch that, need to visit, see, and explore. The second week that the kids get out of school happened to align with my short week of my 3/12 - 4/12 schedule. So I put the days on my wife's calendar and told her I was taking the boy camping. I invited his twin sister as well but knew it wasn't really up her alley.

My original plan was to start at Jawbone, drive to Isabella, then go up to Kennedy Meadows via Sherman Pass jeep rd. I was going to spend at least two nights in Monache camping along the Kern. I have been coming up to the Kern Plateau most of my life, but it has alway been on motorcycles. i was realy looking forward to the different change of pace that camping out of the truck would bring. Plus not having to pull my 30' toy hauler up the canyon is always a bonus. Due to stories that the top is still closed due to snow got me starting to look at other options. Calling the ranger station and being told that Sherman Pass Jeep rd. has not been opened put further doubt in my original plan. The Chimney Peak fire a few weeks before cemented the decision.

That gave me under two weeks to come up with a completely different location and plan how i was going to get there. The time of year took all the desert locations out of the equation. Then we got a call from friends that our Mammoth camping trip was falling through. That cemented to destination, now I just had to figure out my route and what optional activities I was thinking about doing.

I came up with a rough plan after hours on Google maps and Earth looking at all the roads and paths that might work. I was also searching the normal "things to do in" all the areas up to and including Mammoth. The one for sure place was Alabama Hills. It was on the way and on that mental bucket list so that became my starting point.

The rough trip plan was as follows:
- Wake up as early as possible
- Haul but up to Lone Pine
- Get breakfast while waiting for the film museum to open
- Drive out to the Alabama Hills, air down
- Drive through the Alabama Hills, find a few back roads, get to Manzanar without hitting pavement.
- Visit Manzanar
- Cross the highway and head toward the hills to the Reward Mine
- When leaving the mine, hang a right and follow the roads between the hills and the Owens River all the way to Big Pine.
- Get BBQ in Big Pine
- Go up highway 168 to White Mountain rd. and check out the ancient bristlecone forest.
- Take Silver Canyon Rd down to Laws and run into Bishop to grab any last minute supplies.
- Take Casa Diablo rd. up to Benton Crossing area
- Cross the highway and head up to Laurel Lakes.

I knew this was going to be rather ambitious so I told my son, "we will try and make our destination, but no big deal if we don't". There will be plenty of opportunity to grab a camp spot along the way, and continue on in the morning.

 

[KSL22]

So with a basic plan in place I started packing the truck up. My truck is a Dodge 2500 6.7 megacab with a mix vendor leveling kit on 35x12.5r17 tires. For a tent I grabbed my big Coleman cabin. For cooking I blew the dust off a Coleman two burner stove I had in the back of my shed and grabbed my Jet Boil for quick boil water. Pulled some pots, pans, a cast iron skillet, and utensils out of the trailer. I had two 40 deg bags, a queen pad, and some blankets. I have three Rubbermaid type bins. One for cooking stuff, one for dry food, and one has my truck stuff (pump, strap, d-rings, tire chains, bottle jack, and tie downs). I threw in my $99 Lowes tool box and my big white cooler with lots of waters.

Day 1 - 6/15/16
We woke up around 4:30 and got out to the truck and on the road at 5:00. We left Moorpark and headed up the highway. Around Palm-caster my son started getting a little hungry so we pulled off and got some donuts and a coffee. Getting back on the freeway the coffee kicked in and my mind started remembering all the stuff I forgot. Pillows, turkey meat, and a few other things.

We got up to Lone Pine and went to a cafe I had read about in my searches. The Alabama Hills Cafe. The idea was to grab some breakfast while we waited for the museum to open. This cafe serves the best breakfast I have ever had. And that is a big statement from me as I am somewhat of a breakfast nut. I have ever seen a chicken fried steak so large and the gravy was spot on. After we ate until we couldn't anymore, we paid our way and went over to the museum in hopes of getting a map of the film locations. Well some how we made up an hour on our schedule and we weren't going to wait for the doors to open. Plans change and we adapt.

Shane and I jumped back in the truck and headed out Whitney Portal Rd. and made a left on Tuttle Creek rd due to construction on Whitney Portal rd. We tried to see some of the famous rock formations represented on the wall at the Alabama Cafe. Shane said he recognized a few, but I didn't see them. The loop around is a nice paved rd with a stream on your right for most of it. About half way around the loop we saw a tunnel entrance on the left side wall. We pulled over to check it out and grab a few waters out of the cooler.


I guess the trip has officially started. The tunnel wasn't very large. It looked like it could have been more of a miners cabin of sorts rather than an actual mine. After we left there we continued up the road taking a few side routes along the way. After a few tries we found the right combo of roads to get back to Whitney Portal rd. Along the way, off to the left in a open space we recognized A pile of rocks as being the "desert Sphinx". We pulled off here to air down from 60 to 35 psig for comfort and traction. We compromised here as I know there was a few pavement sections mixed into the dirt paths I was taking.


We followed this road around towards the main area of Movie Flats. Finally getting the tires dirty. There was a few places that made me wonder if I took the right trail or not on the way as it was definitely a trail less traveled. After a bit we came across this plaque at the intersection.


From the plaque we cut across the valley towards the rocks looking for some trails and arches. We stopped at what looks like it could have been a fountain, pond, or watering hole. While I looked around to find where to go to next, Shane started playing on the rocks. I had to get a picture with the mountains in the back ground.



to be continued...

 

[KSL22]

Day 1 continued.

I found a trail through the rocks that looked interesting and large enough for me to safely make it through. I didn't know what to expect from the trails with it being my first time here. With a large truck such as mine, you have to be a little more careful on where you head. I found most all the trails I turned down to be more than accommodating. Some of them pinched in a bit in places, but at no time did I have to pull in my mirrors.


There were some optional lines over some of the rocks if you were a little more daring. I chose to avoid most of them until I came across this steep line. My son didn't know what I planned to do and it spooked him a bit. I figured it would be a great place to test the suspension.


I love the vastness of the Sierras. The long valley flanked by two massive ranges is amazing to see in person. We wandered around a bit more looking for some of the more famous arches.


I found one semi technical section (for a rig my size) where the trail did a s-turn through the rocks. I tried to one shot the first turn and failed. I have been wanting something a little more "high clearance" up front. Maybe it is time to start doing some more planning.

 

[KSL22]

Some of the Arches.


We came across a few arches here and there but really wanted to find Mobius Arch. Unfortunately I didn't really know where I was supposed to look. I finally found a trail that dead ended into a canyon and off of the side of that was a walking path outlined in rocks. We found what I thought was it until I got back home and compared it to other pictures.


I had to climb up on this rock ledge on the side of a much larger rock to get the right angle of the peaks through the arch. Figured it was a good time to get a photo of the two of us.


We walked back to the truck and grabbed a few more waters and then headed out down Movie Flats rd toward Manzanar.

 

[KSL22]

Leaving the Alabama Hills we took Movieflats rd to Hogback rd making a left toward the mountains. There will be a right turn on Hogback rd that takes you across Hogback Creek. On the other side the road turns into lightly used two track. You will come across two cattle gates. They were open when we got to them but made sure to close them behind us. The two track will take you to Foothill rd. which you will make a left on. Foothill rd. will take you all the way to the back gate of Manzanar on the far side, right near the cemetery


Hogback road

The two track on the other side of Hogback Creek.


A small creek on Foothill rd and a larger creek crossing. I almost got my son wet on this one, I'll have to try harder next time.

 

[KSL22]

We spent a bit of time looking around Manzanar. I have driven past it for a number of years, but this is the first time I stopped. We came in to the park through the back pretty much right at the Grave Yard. We looked around there for a bit then got back in the truck following the arrows around to the main hall. We got out a few times to look at the Japanese gardens and some of the other stuff. Overall it was a good experience and I am glad my son was able to learn a little about it. We were already behind schedule when we got there so we didn't spend as much time as was really needed.



From Manzanar we crossed the 395 and headed down Manzanar Reward rd. I had to hold my self back from finding out the top speed of the Ram when we crossed the runways of Manzanar airport. The road towards the hills is paved but it is worse than most washboard. We wer looking for Reward Mine and when we got to the end of Manzanar Reward rd we could clearly see mining stuff on the side of the canyon. So I figured that must be the right direction. I knew the mine was up in the mountains here but I didn't remember the exact route.


This is what I saw coming to the end of the road. Mining equipment = mine right. The second picture is heading up the canyon. It was steep and loose but the truck didn't have any trouble with the climb...until we got to the top.


At this point my passenger rear tire wedged against a rock and the front drivers is too close to the road edge for comfort. The back tire was hanging up on the rock causing the front to spin. The spinning tire was not doing good things to the stacked rock road edge. Luckily I was able to get trough before we had and major issues. But once through my hart sank as I realized this wasn't the right canyon for the main mine. Furthermore the was not a good spot to turn around. I figured we are up here so we might as well hike up and check out the chute and what ever else we could find.

 

[KSL22]

Sorry it is taking so long to get this trip report down "on paper". I am trying to get it down between work and stuff around the house.
Question, how do you like to read a trip report? Pictures mixed into the story like I have been doing or more story with separate posts with pictures and descriptions?

 

[MtnToSea]

The way you are posting works for me. I love that area, looking forward to your next post.

 

[KSL22]

Thank you for the input. The next post not from my phone will explain how things really didn't go according to plan.

 

[SDSteve]

Sorry it is taking so long to get this trip report down "on paper". I am trying to get it down between work and stuff around the house.
Question, how do you like to read a trip report? Pictures mixed into the story like I have been doing or more story with separate posts with pictures and descriptions?

Enjoying the report. I enjoy seeing these areas since I always zip by on the 395.

 

[KSL22]

We hiked up the canyon toward the ore chute. It was steep and loose and we weren't quite used to the altitude. The mid day sun didn't help the situation at all either. We came across a few items left over from the operation on the hike up. There was lots of cable and some twisted up track. Shane got as far as the base of the chute before he through in the towel. I continued up to the next plateau as i really wanted to see the chute from the top. Up on the plateau there was more mine stuff. There was a shall chute on the other side of the canyon as well as a few tunnels. I didn't go in to any of the tunnels as it was just my boy and I.





Some of the tunnels and what looks to be a stacked wall of a miners cabin.

 

[KSL22]

I found the trail that took me over to the top of the chute and took a few pictures before heading down to meet up with Shane at the base. At the base there was a some of the linkage and gears that used to operate the crusher. There was a few 6 cyl engines piled of to the side as well.

 

[KSL22]

Now here is where things went a bit haywire. I knew I didn't want to back all the way down the the road I came up and turning around was going to bring the suck. There wasn't a whole lot of room and there was a slight grade present. Not enough grade to where I feared a roll over while breaking the cardinal rule of not turning around on a slope, but enough of one to bring on some pucker factor.

This is the canyon looking down from the top.


This is a closer view of the area I had to turn around in. My front tire was just above that large rock on the left side of the road when the road bed gave way.


I pulled as far up the right side as I could before trying to swing it around. I ran into a few issues while backing up for the first part of my three point turn. One was I didn't have enough room to swing the front end around as hard as I wanted. Another issue was that for every foot I went back the truck would slide a inch or so down hill. I had the same issue when turning down hill which put the back end further down hill than I wanted. I tried to back up to realign but that wasn't working either. So forward it was hoping the road edge would hold where my back passenger was tracking. It didn't....

In order to keep the back passenger tire further left, I went real wide on the turn. This placed the front drivers tire up the slope. I didn't think about it until a few hours into the ordeal but it was the front being up the slope that was causing all the issue with the back. With the front drivers climbing, all the weight of the vehicle was being transferred to the back passenger.

Once the road bed gave way I stopped to try and figure out how we were getting off the mountain and back on our trip. I had food and water for 4 days of camping so I wasn't worried about that. My main fear was the truck sliding further into the ditch and making it not recoverable or worse. We tried to do a quick rock stack to rebuild the road edge and get us back on level footing. That gave way as soon as we went forward placing the back even further down hill. At his point I know it wasn't going to be a simple fix so I started getting large rocks to build out the road bed even further. The problem was the road was 4-6 ft above the ditch which equals a lot of rock.

I was getting large rocks and Shane was getting small ones. He was going into panic mode so I also had to keep re-assuring him that we will get out. I had the trucks stock jack and a bottle jack. The bottle jack does't have much extension on it so it was hard to make it useful. Plus we were still dealing with the back sliding down hill as I was trying to level it. I ended up with the stock Jack under the frame, the bottle jack below the passenger shock mount, but we were still getting sideways movement. I tried to dig under the drivers rear hoping that it would hold it if it was in a hole. It was about this time that I realized what the front end was doing to the rear so I tried digging out in front of that tire as well hoping that if I could get it to lower, it would help the back. I finally got the road bed built up to where it should work if it stayed under weight and I even got the rear to lift up enough with the jack to get a 3' piece of rotten 4x6 mine timber under the tire.
I had one or two more rocks I wanted to place before giving it a go.

As I attempted to put a larger one on top, it upset the whole thing and a lot of the rocks came tumbling down. This is where my hart sank and I started looking for alternate (desperate) ideas. Ideas like full throttle attempt to back back up the hill being ready to turn hard driver to get the front end pointing down the ditch. If I didn't end up my side I figured I could drive out the ditch with some rock stacking to get over the worse parts. After calming down a little I re stacked up the rocks again (still didn't trust them much) and dug out the front some more. My hope was that the board would help out enough to get me the forward movement needed to get the front end back level and I was going to reassess the situation at that point.

So I got in and put it in gear. Started forward with slow steady throttle and some trail braking. The front end came level, but the back didn't hold much past the board. With the front level though, I could feel the back trying to grab and pull itself back up. I went five to ten feet with the back off the edge clawing to get back up when the road opened up a bit. I told my son to get out of the way as he had been in front of me helping spot at this point. Once he was out of the way I spooled it up a little and said some prayers. I launched the truck froward and was able to turn left a little bit. It didn't grab right away but it ended up working and we were back in business about 4 hours later. My son was an emotional wreck at this point and I don't blame him one bit.

This was number two on the things don't go according to plan if you were keeping count. Because of how far behind schedule we were and how beat up I was feeling I made the call to skip the cross country along the Owens River to Big Pine as well as the trip through the Bristle Cone Forest and go straight up to Mammoth.

We stopped at K-mart in Bishop to grab some last minute supplies that I forgot and grab some fast food dinner. We chased sun set all the way up to our camp site. Luckily it stays light later in the higher elevations and we were able to set up camp at dusk.

Note:
Sorry for not getting any pictures of the incident. I really wasn't in that frame of mind at the time. Plus sometimes the less evidence the better. Next trip up there we will have to start finding the real Reward Mine and taking the cross country trip. Next is that nights camp and up to Laurel Lakes.

 

[locrwln]

Rough go for sure, but it will be a story you and your son talk about forever.
.
Jack

 

[MtnToSea]

A tough go for sure but a good lesson for your son that when one thing doesn't work, try something else. The reward mine is up the canyon just north of the one you were in.