We have a couple drives up and down U.S.
395 in California under our belts.
So we thought it was about time to share
three of our favorite spots in the eastern Sierra Nevada with you.
The places we'll visit today transition from scenes you'd expect to see
on another planet to a notably well preserved Old West ghost town
to one of the most heavenly views you might ever set your eyes upon.
Our travels in this area have been many throughout the years.
We've explored the region's amazing trees,
its mind-blowing scenic drives and pristine high alpine lakes.
Even the baked goods.
While we've just skimmed the surface of what there is to see
here, today's picks represent some of our absolute favorites.
If you're looking for something within reach of Yosemite National Park
to diversify your portfolio of things to do during your visit,
then this may be the video for you.
At the base of the
Eastern Sierra and right off the famous California Highway 395, is a lake
that might be familiar to aficionados of Old West Films.
High Plains Drifter, a 1973 American Western film
directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, was filmed on location
here at Mono Lake.
Technicians built a set on location in the span of 18 days,
consisting of 14 buildings inside of which many of the scenes were shot.
The lake is visible throughout much of the film.
One of the reasons the set was chosen is the remarkable beauty of the location.
Seeing the towering eastern Sierra Nevada rising behind the lake provides
a striking backdrop on film and even more so
in person.
But there's much more
than Old West film history to talk about at this lake.
Let's take a deeper look.
Mono Lake is an ancient saline lake that has existed at the base
of the Eastern Sierra for hundreds of thousands of years.
The lake has served as an important life sustaining oasis for various species,
especially the birds who find it an important supply of food
in these waters.
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Arguably, the most notable features of the lake
are strange rock formations that straddle the shores.
Walking around the beach here made us feel like we were inside of an aquarium
filled with coral.
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The name for the strange formations is tufa.
Perhaps one way to think about these odd shapes is as fossilized springs.
Over time, freshwater seeps from below ground into the surrounding saltwater.
The freshwater contains calcium and the salty water
is filled with baking soda like material known as carbonate.
As the two mix, a substance called calcium carbonate is formed,
and over time these strange formations arose as the calcium
carbonate built up over the centuries.
This is such an alien looking landscape here.
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Tufa plays an important role in supporting the animals of the area,
like the birds who make nests in the craggy rocks.
Which brings us to the next observation.
How can a highly salty and seemingly barren lake host so much life?
I mean, it's so salty here that no native fish species can survive.
The food chain of the lake is
based on algae that thrives in late winter and into spring.
On these algae, feed one of the lakes most famous residents, the brine shrimp.
These are much smaller than your average shrimp and have little
to no nutritional value to humans.
During the warmest months of the year,
it's estimated that 4 to 6 trillion shrimp inhabit these waters.
Brine shrimp are a staple in the diet of the birds
that visit the lake to rest and eat at different times of the year.
A vital part of the ecosystem.
The lake here
hosts another tasty little snack that the birds here enjoy.
But I might need to prep you for this next one.
Flies.
At Mono lake you can find flies that can swim underwater.
The amazing alkali fly.
You see them scattering about
as I close in on them.
Can you hear that?
During the warmer months,
you might see little teardrop shapes swimming in the shallows.
That would be our little fly friends.
Tiny hairs around the fly's body helped to trap a bubble
of air around the fly so that it may swim underwater.
So in other words, Mono Lake has scuba diving flies.
Once you begin to understand the amazing diversity here, you can more
easily understand why groups have gone out of their way to protect this lake.
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Over the years, the streams that fed into Mono Lake
were diverted to Los Angeles to serve the city's growing need for water.
In many places along the shoreline, you can see spots where only decades
before the shoreline stretched out far beyond today's shore.
Combined with drought and possibly the effect of changing climate,
time will tell if 40 years from now, future visitors will pass
a sign marking where we stood in the 2020s.
For now,
Mono Lake remains a fascinating place to visit and easily
ranks as one of our favorite spots to visit in the eastern Sierra Nevada.
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Even though the set of High Plains
Drifter was removed from the shores of Mono Lake after filming,
you can still find plenty of Old West up here in the Eastern Sierra.
The real Old West.
This is the Old West,
frozen in time.
About a 45 minute drive
north of the lake at a higher elevation of over 8000 feet,
is perhaps one of the world's best preserved 19th century ghost towns.
Bodie, California.
The final few miles to the town is up a dirt road.
But don't worry, it's easily passable for just about any type of vehicle.
Except for the winter months,
where at times the only way up to Bodie is by snowmobile.
Bodie is unlike anything I've ever experienced of this sort.
This is a genuine California gold rush
Old West ghost town still left standing well into the 21st century.
And it's made of wood.
Lots of wood.
Building after building, block after block.
The real deal.
No Old West section of an amusement park
got anything on Bodie.
When you venture deep within the streets, perhaps through what was once
someone's backyard and you see Old West in every periphery,
it yanks you back for a minute.
Hard to describe and kind of eerie.
Bodie’s boom was pretty epic by Old West standards, but relative short lived,
spanning from about late 1877 to the late 1880.
The town had all the stuff you'd expect from an Old West mining town,
drinking, murder and a reputation for being a pretty rough place.
After the
boom, the get rich, quick miners
and rough and tumble types abandoned ship for other nearby strikes,
leaving a smaller, more family friendly community to work
the mines.
The town saw a revival
or two here and there, but by 1915,
Bodie was beginning to become described as an official ghost town.
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Today, you can see buildings from the era here,
like the very photogenic Methodist Church, constructed in 1882.
And you just smell old wood.
And from there, it's building after building after building
in all their Old West glory.
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And if admiring the Old West esthetic
of the exteriors of the historic buildings was not enough,
much of the history you view remains indoors, behind glass
as former residents and businesses left much behind.
As you wander the streets,
you can play the role of a 19th century window shopper admiring the finest
the era has to offer.
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Often you can see
original wallpaper and other reminders of past human inhabitants.
It's eerie sometimes, just how relatable it is.
Yet each scene is a time capsule capturing an essence
of a very different time.
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One of the best places to peer through the old glass is through
the old schoolhouse, where many items have been left to collect dust.
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And apparently this is only a small portion
of what remains after a fire tore through the town in 1932
during the final years of bodies decline.
Still, it's wildly impressive how much of a sense of place
still exists on these streets today.
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And that's the best way to summarize the overall experience for me.
Being there delivered a sense of place, in the Old West sense,
unlike any other Old West ghost town I've ever visited.
So you got to agree.
Isn't this epic when it comes to ghost towns?
Now do you understand why I always compare everything else to this place?
So hopefully by now you're getting why Bodie is such a special place.
Perhaps some might even call it a mecca of sorts when it comes to Old West
ghost towns.
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Bodie is a place I think I'll visit any time I'm passing through the area.
Even with two visits under my belt over the years,
I've still only explored a small portion of what there is to see in Bodie,
giving me many reasons to return.
And there you have it.
That's two places so far that you can visit in the Eastern Sierra
both on the same day if you wanted.
We have one more notable spot to tell you about coming up next.
If you find yourself in the middle of Yosemite traffic jams
that leave you hoarse and need a place to escape,
you may already be thanking us for the first two recommendations
as Mono Lake and Bodie are day-trippable from the famous national park.
Assuming the beautiful Tioga pass is open.
We assume most of you watching would be visiting in the summer months.
To add to our list, our final spot is officially inside Yosemite National Park
hidden away in the lesser traveled northwestern corner.
Hetch Hetchy is a valley not unlike the more well-known Yosemite Valley.
Equal and grander in some folks opinion, but with two distinct differences.
First, the valley is covered in water, creating a unique scene like no other.
Second, this is a much less visited section of the park,
meaning less people and plenty of time to yourself.
Hetch Hetchy, everyone.
Look at how magnificent that looks.
This is so picturesque
and barely any people.
For thousands of years, people lived in this valley deep within the Eastern
Sierra.
The name Hetch Hetchy is derived from one of the native cultures,
the word “hatchhatchie”, which translates to edible grasses.
For most of the time, man lived on these lands,
the valley would have resembled the modern day Yosemite Valley, towering
granite cliffs and domes, lush meadows with a river running through it.
A true paradise on earth.
But by the late 1800s, the nearby burgeoning city of San Francisco began
to view the water that flows through the valley as a source
that could be captured and service the needs of a growing populace.
Many would protest, including the famous naturalist John Muir.
But eventually, the demand for water would defeat the opposition
and the final phase of construction of the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed
in 1938, flooding the valley and creating what we see today.
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The dam is
430 feet tall and the reservoir holds 117 billion gallons of drinking water
for over 2 million residents of the San Francisco area.
Whether you love it or hate it, it's hard to argue
that the current state of the valley is a thing of beauty unto itself,
albeit manmade.
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Today,
you can hike many miles of trails in this area, but perhaps the most
popular and family friendly is a walk along the shore of the reservoir
to a waterfall a couple of miles up a moderately challenging trail.
A round trip out in back is about five miles.
The route begins at the dam,
and you could spend time getting some great shots from atop the dam itself.
It's one of several highlights of the trail.
I mean, this is crazy.
Look at that.
On the opposite side of the dam from where you started, you’ll spot
the entrance to an ominous looking tunnel that goes directly to the rock.
Okay, we're heading towards this tunnel on the other side of the dam.
And I have a feeling this is going to rock.
And who doesn't love a cool, shady tunnel?
[child screaming]
Well, okay, maybe not that one screaming kid over there.
But for everyone else, just know
it's a welcome sight on the return trip on a hot day.
Along the way to the falls, you'll get many amazing views and photo
opportunities right off the trail.
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Well, come get a little bit better view
of the dam
from this side, and you can pretty much see where we've come.
See the trail down below.
Follows the
coastline through the tunnel and across the dam.
And this is the uphill part.
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Honestly, my mouth is wide open around almost every twist and turn.
Eventually, you arrive at the falls.
During our July visit, the falls are well past their prime.
But it was still an impressive sight to see the water fall from that high up.
Plus, as hot as a day as it was, that cool water
at the base of the falls was a welcome respite from the heat for many.
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When the falls are at their fullest,
this area can be a dangerous place, so probably not conducive to
taking a leisurely plunge into the fresh, cool water.
Hetch Hetchy is a magical place to visit.
Even if it's somewhat controversial.
Maybe one day cities can efficiently obtain their water in different ways
and put the valley back into its original form.
Either way, we think most will find something beautiful beyond words at Hetch
Hetchy, and it makes for a worthy stop on any visit to the Eastern Sierra.
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Okay, friends, there you have it.
Hopefully a little something for everyone.
That was three of our favorite stops in the eastern Sierra.
Mono Lake, Bodie ghost town, and Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park.
If you enjoyed learning a bit about these fantastic places,
please comment down below and let us know.
Don't want to miss out on future content?
then subscribe and turn on notifications as we release new videos every week.
If you enjoyed this video, you might want to check out some of our other videos
we've made in this area like our morning we spent in Mammoth Lakes.
And that about does it for this episode.
We hope you had fun and we'll see you again on the next one.
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