HWY 395 Road Trip

Depends on what kind of camping you want to do. Established campgrounds will start closing for the season pretty soon. Weather is more probable in September too. I've stayed in Mammoth at the forest service campground, dispersed camping off of the eastern side of Hwy 120, Deadman's Pass area, east side of Mono Lake, Masonic, Indian Creek over off 89 and near Markleville. The list is long but there's always a place you can camp along 395.

Have a great trip!

 

This thread really makes me miss the West.

 

Hey gents, just wanted to say thanks for all of the tips for the i395/eastern sierra run. We finished up the wheeling/hiking/camping portion of our trip yesterday and are now spending time in the Bay area before heading back to San Diego.

I plan on doing a full trip report with GPX and KML files from gaia and I also recorded all of the runs with my GoPro. Here are some bits and a few pics.

@bjmoosen @Katchaser00 @MotoEd Bodie was amazing. With the advice from many here we took the back way via Masonic road into Bodie. Nice and easy fire road etc but had a few offshoots I definitely wanted to try some other time. It gave me a chance to give the gf a go at driving the rig in the dirt, a first for her Good easy learning trail, WIDE WIDE open spaces. We felt kinda of like rock stars coming down the hill behind the parking lot where all the tourists were sitting in their rental cars haha


@CalTacoma09 We tried to hit devils post pile, but didnt realize we needed to take the shuttle from Mammoth to the site. Instead we just drove to the top of Minaret peak and had a snack. There is some off roading trail in the area according to All trails but I couldn't find the start of it for the life of me


@ian408 We camped at our 2nd location at Convict Lake. Great spot! Woke up to deer running through our camp. The gf went for a run and ended up petting a deer. good spot. Little windy, so bring your tie downs etc. They also have token showers by the general store. We needed them hah




@MotoEd That location actually sounds amazing. We didnt get to spend a WHOLE lot of time in Mammoth unfortunately. We were limited on time and the Bodie trip took pretty much ALL day. They are doing some major construction on the 395 a bit north of Lee Vining in the Mono Lake area. Added a few hours to the day. Next time I would like to explore Mammoth more as I haven't been there very much like the other place etc. Flush toilets and showers are a HUGE bonus as we learned in the Truckee area

@imtaconico Alabama Hills/Whitney was pretty stunning. I had no idea Alabama Hills and Mobius arches was there and so close to the freeway. TBH it probably had the most amazing rock formations of our entire trip.




@NorCalTaco552 Reward Mine was probably one of our early favorites. Once the trail starts heading uphill, the terrain gets REALLY soft. It was a great test for the truck though. I took it all the way up to the "Brown Monster" that is south of the mine. Played around with the crawl control on the hill with all the tailings. I actually managed to get it stuck going up hill with the crawl control, but switched to MTS and it blew right past it. Beware if you head up here, the slope is pretty steep and you need to back down to get out. Was a bit hairy but again, a great test for the rig.





The mine was awesome. Seriously, the temp different from outside to inside was like 50 deg. I drove in for the first 30 feet but thats it. We walked back some to check it out but got spooked when our flashlight died hah. We kept going on the little road behind the main mine and hiked to the top mine shaft entrance. Although it looks like this entrance was never finished.


Girlfriend completely freaked out. She is kind of a weirdo hah



Also, while just sitting there we heard a low, rumbling sound getting louder and louder. All of a sudden like 5 what looked like C17 Globemasters flew right past the entrance to the mine valley. We saw the first one and were like "wholly sh$t" and then were bummed we didn't get a pic or video, then like 4 others came by. I managed to snag one in flight. They must have been doing some training out of Edwards or maybe Travis Air Force base?

Anyway, was pretty cool to see them actually lower than us hah. I have a video I will be including in my full report too.


After Mammoth we headed up to the Tahoe area. Did some reminiscing (I lived there as a kid) and then made our way to camp.

WARNING: if you camp in the Tahoe basin area or the surrounding area, the yellow jacket wasps are REALLY bad right now. We made the mistake of trying to cook breakfast and were literally chased out of camp. I would have preferred to deal with bears then these little f%ckers. Got stung twice before we finally went and bought some traps up in Truckee. Helped a bit, but I talked to the ranger and she said its pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to cook during the day.

And seriously, how the hell did this happen? HAHA. Dont worry PETA I let the bug go free, but I thoroughly devoured the cow flesh



Again thanks for all of the suggestions for the trip. It was kind of a last minute thing but we were able to put it together. We did a TON more, all over the Tahoe area including Mt Watson and a few other fun trails.

Also thanks to @KB Voodoo for getting me the bed rack in short order. Everyone I came across asked about it and was really impressed with it. Including a dude in the Tahoe area that was running an All Pro setup.

 

Looks like a successful trip for you, the gf and that yellow jacket

 

Oooohhhhhhhh looks like you guys had a blast. So cool to see the pics included! We were gonna try and head down towards the end of this month at the latest, as I don't wanna go when it gets too cold. Can't wait to take the back roads to Bodie! Did you guys see anyone camping on those back roads going to/from Bodie?

 

We did this trip a few years ago. Not a good area to camp. Most areas have no trees, or water, and some private property.
Here's a photo about half-way in at 'the crossroads' on top



Other things to see from those same backroads behind Bridgeport, are abandoned mines, town ruins.
Also, a little further back in, there is an active gold mine operation next to the ghost-town of Aurora, which are just inside Nevada.

 

Yeah from what I hear, it isn't very good for camping. I think we were going to try and find a nice hill/cliff area where we can set up a quick camp. I sleep in the back of my truck bed with a tent over-head if I need it, so it shouldn't be an issue for one night. Im hoping we get enough time to hit all the cool areas around that area. Going to be a time-crunch of a trip unfortunately. Aurora would be awesome to check out as well.

 

Up at Masonic is perfect for camping.

 

Nice quick report. Sorry I didn't find it sooner or I would have suggested you take the Bodie Mill tour with guide in period costume. When I did it the guide was a woman dressed in an old fashioned dress and hat and took on the character of wife of the mill manager. The group were all potential employees and we were all assigned jobs in different areas. When it got down to the end the remaining people who didn't have "jobs" were assigned to the mercury processing tables and it was highly stressed they wear the provided gloves as the past employees had crazily ran off into the hills (mercury poisoning).

When were you up there? I was there in June and saw a flight of 6 C-17s near the Volcanic Tablelands/White Mountains. They headed south and all turned to the east then back to the north. I wasn't close enough to see the markings to find out where they were based. Most of Owens Valley is a military flight training area so there's usually something interesting flying around.

 

If you're in Bishop over labor Day weekend feel free to join me hiking/mountain biking White Mountain Peak.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-peak-ancient-bristle-cone-pines-beer.500671/