Day Three, The Alabama Hills and The Mobius Arch

First of all, The Alabama Hills in California? No, they weren't transplanted here. They were named by southern prospectors in the area during the Civil War after the CSS Alabama scored a long series of victories as a commerce raider and ran the US Navy ragged for awhile. Eventually, Alabama was sunk by the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Normandy in 1864. Then northern prospectors named a mining district, a mountain pass, a mountain peak, and a town after the Kearsarge.

The Navy must have gotten some better camouflage paint since I left Lemoore in 1978. I heard the Hornets or Super Hornets all morning long, but I only caught sight of a couple (as I was composing this shot). It was impressive when he (or she) broke right directly overhead at about 200 ft. I was sure they were busting the floor restrictions for the MOA (when I almost dropped my camera), but I checked and the airspace is theirs from 200 ft to Angels 18 (18,000 ft or Flight Level 180).

I tried to catch a shot or two of them, but I'd set up my camera to use a back focus button instead of the shutter release so my attempts went for nought. This little oasis in the two pictures above is the result of the Owens River which crosses CA-136 here, just SE of Lone Pine. It occurred to me later that such a crossing point might be a VFR fix for whatever sandblower (low level) route they were flying. Maybe they hadn't been trying scare the. . . well, you know.

Here are a couple shots of Mt Whitney with the Alabama Hills in the middle ground. Remember the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, and Gene Autrey? An awful lot of the movies and TV shows shot from the '30s  on were filmed here. The road west out of Lone Pine is Whitney Portal Rd and the cutoff north into the Alabama Hills is Movie Rd or Movie Flat Rd (Google Maps uses both).

Besides those referred to above The Alabama Hills were locations for Bonanza, Tom Mix and Tim Holt films, Gunga Din, Springfield Rifle, Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), and the Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott westerns. If you don't remember those, how about How the West Was Won, Joe Kidd and Gladiator. Still too far back? How about Star Trek Generations, Disney's Dinosaur, Iron Man, or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Thank you Wikipedia, I rest my case.

I'm not really obsessed with the Mobius Arch, it's just that I'd never heard of it till two nights before I left on this trip when I came across pictures of it. When it noted that the arch was just outside Lone Pine, I checked it out. Great pics! Much better than these, but I didn't have the benefit of an infinitely flexible schedule to shoot sunrises, sunsets, star fields, etc. So, bear with me. The shot above is from the edge of the trailhead parking area (which is very flat). Satellite photos show no appreciable difference between the parking area and the trail to the arch. But why I assumed that the quarter mile hike would be flat baffles me. As you can see, there's a lot of up and down involved here (mostly up), including steep sections here and there where stone steps were introduced.

Once I started down the trail, the arch disappeared and this is the next glimpse I caught of it - definitely uphill, and this after having to climb high enough just to see it again!

A third view, and I'm still looking UP. What are those little "huts"? Never mind.

And yet another view of the arch. Like the pics of Mt Whitney, the angle and the background seem to stay the same but the foreground and middle ground. . . never mind. . . just keep walking. . .

Okay, there it is. Mobius Arch my Aunt Fanny. It looks like ET playing kissy-face with an octopus or something. Still, I did make it. That looks like a bench over there made just for me.

Alright! How long can I sit here before starting back. I can see my charcoal Santa Fe in the parking area in the middle distance. Water, air conditioning, a snack. Too soon yet. I'll just rest here awhile longer. . . or call EMS. . . Who am I kidding? You expect cell phone coverage out here? I guess I could be at Furnace Creek. . .  a hundred and how many degrees? I'd better stop whining and be thankful just to be still kickin'.

I did make it back to the parking lot. After climbing up to it I thought I was going to have to crawl the last 150 ft to the car. I thought of the scene in Apocalypse Now where Frederick Forrest was scared by the tiger while out in the jungle hunting mangoes, made it back to the PBR and was hanging onto the chief's leg screaming "You were right, Chief. I'll never get out of the ______ boat again!" The water I had in the car sure was good.

Day Three, Between Barstow and Lone Pine

I left Barstow about 5 AM, thinking that would give me time to get clear of traffic and get out in the desert to catch the sunrise. But, I was on vacation so being tardy isn't an actionable offense. It was just a bit farther than I expected, that's all.

This "near sunrise" was shot on the Trona - Wild Rose Rd and captured what I was looking for, the golden hour, a little lens flare, and a descriptive foreground.

As the sun got higher the lighting conditions got harder. This view of the Panamint Valley was taken coming out of the hills and looking towards Ballarat. Now, I didn't actually see it, but I read the historical marker. Founded as a supply base for local mines in 1896 or '97 because of a reliable nearby water source in use since the 1850's it was named by an Aussie immigrant for Ballarat, Victoria. In the eight years between then and 1905 the town had a population approaching 500, seven saloons, three hotels, a Wells Fargo station, a Post Office, a school, a jail, and a morgue - but no churches.

 I think of that pyramid-looking hill center stage as California's answer to Zeto Point, a peninsula 3 mi off the approach end of runway 23 on Adak. That was my first impression when I saw it 10 years ago. Now, a feature of the Mojave Desert reminding me of anything in Adak, Alaska strikes me as preposterous. Anyhow, this Zeto Point is about three mi north of Nadeau Trail (CA-190) where Panamint Valley Rd comes to an end.

Speaking of which, this is that very intersection looking east, where the road disappears into the mountains separating Death Valley from Panamint Valley. Up there (down there) the town of Furnace Creek, Headquarters and Visitors Center for Death Valley NP, has an elevation of 190 ft below sea level and the 2010 population was 24. The town has the record for the highest recorded temperature in the world,  134° on July 10, 1913, but of course, some meteorologists don't buy the accuracy of the 1913 measurement. Also, a ground temperature of 201° was recorded in Furnace Creek on July 15, 1972 and may be the highest natural ground surface temperature ever recorded. It can get hot.

These two shots both just happen to feature the same Joshua tree from the same angle, but there were plenty to choose from. I just wanted to get some shots without getting too far from my car (and water). Joshua Tree NP probably has better examples, but it's twice as far south of here as yesterday's Mojave National Preserve. These will have to do.

My first view this trip of Mt Whitney, topping out at 14,505 ft, the highest point in the contiguous United States. I spent the day fascinated  by it - all the views looked the same except for the foreground and middle ground. The surface elevation of nearby Owens Lake is 3,556 ft almost 11,000 ft lower than the peak.

I was so glad for the clear skies. Normally I'm hoping for interesting clouds for the pictures, but I would have been distraught had Mt Whitney been obscured even by interesting clouds. I like how, in this shot, the rust color of the hill intruding from the left matches the telephone pole perfectly. But then, I'm not very hard to please.

It was about here I became aware of the roar of Navy F/A-18 fighters that provided the continuing sound track for my visit to the Lone Pine area. I had forgotten from my time at NAS Lemoore that the footprint of the Military Operating Area (MOA) east of Mt Whitney was essentially the same as the footprint of the northern Mojave Desert itself.

Tomorrow's post will cover my possibly rash decision to shrug off my tether to the car and wander off on the trail to the Mobius Arch.