The 395 and Owens Valley-Eastern Sierra Region

I think it's kind of a tough nut. You buy a ghost town that's probably seen some vandalizm as well as a fire and not a lot of money to work with. I suppose closed buildings with people living in them, where do the workers live?

Compare that to Bodie? No comparison. Maintenance is "in a state of arrested decay". CG dude will need a while. Compared to Masonic, idk--Masonic is blown apart with shotgun shells all over the place. Everything is full of bullet holes

 

Who the heck is living in all the “structures” at Cerro Gordo?!?

 

Day 2 & 3

Day 2 and 3 were fairly uneventful. We just worked our way up the 395 checking out whatever we wanted to.

Cows near Crowley Lake:


Hitting some whoops near Mammoth:


Mono Lake:


Bald Mtn. Fire Lookout view:


Normally I only have a few days off so I don't make it much past June lake but on day 3 we were going to meet up with the rest of our group about 1hr above Bridgeport. I haven't really explored this area much but after this trip I need to plan some more time up here! We found this awesome area with great camping and what looks to be great offroading! We accidentally took a wrong turn at some point but kept going because the views were awesome and we didn't need to be back to the camp site until the afternoon. I believe we ended up on the top of Mt. Peterson:








This part of the trip was a 10/10. The rest of our group met us later that afternoon and after a nice meal we all went to bed ready to finish the last long leg of the trip in the morning, or so we thought...

 

Day 4
We all woke sometime around 8 and packed up camp. We left a little after 9 after making sure we were all cleaned up and there was no trash left in the campsite. The road was pretty flat and smooth so we were making great time traveling 20-40MPH without any issues. We had made it ~3/4 of the way back down to the highway when one of my buddies decided to flip his 4Runner on a tight turn:




Thankfully no one was hurt and through some miracle an ER nurse happened to be coming up the road right behind me. She checked everyone out and confirmed they would be ok if they just took it easy. Now no one saw the roll, and the only way to end up the way they did is if they rolled completely over. It's hard to tell in the photos but there is a sharp turn right up the road and our best guess is he was driving a bit too fast and just lost it on the corner. We think he hit a big rock which caused him to buck and flip. He's also lucky he stopped where he did otherwise he would've rolled down the hill for who knows how long.

We managed to get his truck back on the road using the winches of the friends who joined us the night before. We cleaned up all the plastic and as much glass as we could. I towed him back to the main highway while he started calling AAA. Now the roll over sucked but the worst part was we were stuck in a fairly remote part of the 395. What made it even worse is no tow companies wanted to take him south, only north to Reno. While he was working on that my other buddy and I started looking closer at the 4Runner. The tie rods were bent, core support was smashed, hood was falling off, all the windows were broken, it was a mess but looked salvageable. We got to work pulling spark plugs, swapping tie rods, fixing the core support the best we could, and checking other components and in the end we somehow managed to get it running and driving again! After about 4 hours of talking to tow companies with 0 luck we made the decision to just drive it to Reno. I was the lucky one that got to drive it!


The drive sucked. Glass was blowing in my face, it was over 100, but we made it 60 miles north to a U-Haul where my buddy rented a truck and flatbed and drove it home that same day. Overall we were all just glad he was ok but the nerves for the rest of the trip were high. We finished the day with a long drive to a little podunk place called Forest City where we met the norcal folks, showered, and rested from the crappy day.

 

Day 5/6/7
Day 5, 6, and 7 were great! We of course felt terrible for my buddy as he was so excited to get the 4Runner out on its maiden voyage but we were just glad he was home ok. The norcal crew consisted of a few peoplle including Timmy the Toolman, who was just at our shop a week ago filming a video. He was in charge for this leg of the trip and I was just along for the ride. He took us up to a place called Gold Lake which had some amazing views and wheeling. It was awesome getting to flex the new suspension in my 4R and overall we all just had a great time crawling through the forest. There were 9 vehicles which was a fairly large group but overall it was a blast!












This whole leg of the trip went rather smooth with the only causality being a popped tire which was easily repaired. We only spent 1 night in the area before us SoCal people headed back home over the next couple days. We stopped for the night in Mammoth then finished the trek home the next day.

Overall 8/10 trip (minus my friend rolling, the heat, and the bugs). It's safe to say I'm already planning the next one!

 

It's on my list to come to CG from the east side! Man that almost sounds worse than my experience. Hopefully with more time they will be able to get the buildings properly restored and opened.

 

Bodie is top notch! I know they get WAYY more funding being a state park and all but it's the perfect way to experience an American boom town with great exhibits and info on everything. Coming into CG I was kind of hoping it would be something like that. I haven't been to Masonic but I'd love to one day!

 

"Staff"

 

That flip is gnarly. Glad you got it running again.

I presume dude is already shopping for 40s and tons, because that's a crawler now.

 

It was a late in the day culmination to a Death Valley trip, and we caught the sunset over the Sierras heading down the hill on our way up to Bishop, so it was no biggie not seeing everything. I didn't even know there was a Youtube channel for the place until somebody else brought it up.

 

There's a book too! Living in a Ghost Town or something like that.

 

We tried to convince him to do this haha! Instead that 4Runner is now little pieces of scrap and the interior, drive train, and suspension are getting transplanted into another 4Runner. He got it to my shop and started taking it apart and this weekend he went to town with a sawzall and reduced it to scrap.

 

Wow! I'm glad everyone was OK! And kudos for the resourcefulness in getting it down to pavement.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you were all suffering from get-home-itis, which seriously impairs judgement and can lead to injuries, fatalities, and often nasty liability and even prison time when we get a bit too resourceful trying to get home.

That vehicle did not belong on 395 - ever.

The included photo shows you driving a vehicle with impaired visibility and a suspension potentially ready to come apart while traveling on an undivided two lane highway with closure speeds to oncoming traffic of 110 mph assuming no one is even speeding - 130 mph in practice.

If the CHP saw you then you'd obviously be pulled over and what happened to you after that would probably depend on how frequently or how recently the officer had dealt with one of the many horrible accidents that occur on the 395. If you are lucky you get a minor citation. If not, things like "reckless endangerment" start to come into play.

God forbid you ended up in an accident and, assuming you survived, you would be up against fairly extreme legal peril. It was nice you were trying to help your buddy out, but you were taking way, way, way too much risk there. Worse, while it is easy to forget, you were endangering every single innocent oncoming vehicle you passed during those 60 miles.

We all make stupid decisions, so I'm not trying to crawl down your throat with virtue signalling. I've made plenty of boneheaded ones myself. But take this as a teaching moment. You got away with a really boneheaded decision. The kind we all often make when we are tired at the end of a long trip and just want to get home. It kills a surprising number of people, and often times people who had no part in the bad decision making in the first place.

Awesome trip report! Look forward to more!

 

I won't disagree with a single thing said here, driving a rolled truck is never safe NOR a good idea! AAA said a tow truck wouldn't be coming for another 5+ hours or maybe even not at all, they were even calling commercial truckers but no one wanted to do the drive. Even the 1 tow company that wanted to take us to Reno backed out for some reason. We were all tired, hot, and ready to get out of there. I wouldn't have hopped on the road if I hadn't been going through the suspension, tires, and drive train for the last 4 hours. I brushed over us checking all the ball joints, taking the wheels off to check bearings, retorquing all the suspension parts, looking for cracks, checking frame alignment with a tape measure as best as we could. It was a long hot drive, trying to keep it 40mph and under, and we stuck it in the middle of the pack to at least try to give us a buffer zone of sorts. Thankfully there was LOTS of construction going on on the 395 that day so lots of slow slow driving.

I 100% agree with you and so did my group as we all had a long discussion before we went for it.

I will add to this, the drive definitely keeps me up at night when my brain goes over everything that could have happened. I'm just glad nothing did happen and we all made it out ok.

 

The AAA in the NNv is a joke. The Reno AAA has the contract for their area or something and nobody else can tow to or thru Reno and they won't come outside the area. I was stuck in Fernley needing a tow to Sacramento. I had to do it on my own as they were no help. btw, there is a uhaul in Bishop too. We've had to use them to get a truck and trailer before.

 

Been a couple three years since I came north from Mammoth. A cousin has a small condo there, so I visited him a couple nights. I had driven across Nevada to camp at Great Basin NP a couple nights. Long ways to drive to camp, came back via Ely of course, then Tonopah to Mammoth.
More like five years ago, Repo pup and I backpacked into the Angel Adams Wilderness for five nights, leaving out of Silver Lake area. Tough hike, only 65 at the time, won’t go that route again over Cathryn and Thousand Island lakes. Reverse route from what I had done over 12 years before.
Duane

 

What a beautiful trout! I'm absolutely chomping at the bit to get up into the mountains, can't wait to be up there in a couple weeks spending time with family in the Hot Creek area.

 

I found this pleasant river off the 395, it was nice to soak, and nobody was around.

 

There's no fish as attractive as a genetically pure Golden. Sadly, they are getting fewer and further between. They are out there but you got to be willing to walk. Which I do a shit ton of chasing those rad fish.

I've actually been toying with the idea of doing a Sierra Golden's guide book. I'm torn since half the fun in it for me is the solitude. Giving people that info might mean that I actually see other folks when I want to be alone. That's why I decided to only include lakes over 8 miles in. If your gonna go your gonna have to really want it. I bet it sells 7 copies if I decide to put the effort into publishing it. lol

 

Well, I'll make that 8 copies!

Back in the 60's my grandfather started going up to Arcularius Ranch and it turned into a family tradition until the ranch closed when I was about 16yo. We started going to Alpers and Hot Creek after that and even though my grandfather is gone now a large contingent of the family is still continuing the tradition. While I've been fishing the Owens and Hot Creek for nearly 40yrs now my experience is still pretty limited to those streams and haven't ventured out much further. It's something I'd like to change. Maybe 5yrs ago I realized that while I visit the area at least a few times a year I really hadn't explored all that much outside of my normal stomping grounds. So I've been spending more time viewing the satellite images and looking for new adventures further off the beaten path. I've got family staying at Hot Creek ranch in early Aug and I plan to camp nearby to spend time with them but also hoping to get some exploring done as well. Regardless of what I find, time spend in the Sierra's is always worthwhile and something that helps rejuvenate my soul.