Road Trip # 12

Not too long ago I wrote about a crazy 3 day road trip I took around the Central and Southern Sierra Nevadas. This story is just another crazy road trip. I was stationed at Lemoore Naval Air Station in California for a few years. During that time I had a VW Van fitted for camping. Also during that time, my work schedule included 3 day breaks periodically. I have always felt one can do a lot of driving in 3 days.

One of those 3 day breaks found a friend and I headed to China Lake to see a mutual friend of ours. Of course this is me and my plan was not to just drive to China Lake. Lemoore NAS is in the San Joaquin Valley at a little above 270 feet above sea level. The time of this trip was early summer. I had heard about a great campground in the Southern Sierra Mountains on the Kern Plateau so that was our initial destination.

Driving from Lemoore, we headed towards Porterville and from there up! Driving into the Sierra Nevadas is always awesome. This is one of the more spectacular drives. As you climb out of the Central Valley, following the Tule river, the vegetation turns from brown or mostly brown chaparral and oak to greens, to, finally, the lush greens of the conifer forest. You pass places with names like Camp Nelson, Cedar Shope, and Quaker Meadow. As you near the top of that section of the mountains you arrive at a place called Ponderosa, and an establishment called Ponderosa Lodge. It is a very pretty place to stop for a break.

The road beyond Ponderosa is only open in the summer. This is the Great Western Divide Highway. The ridge that it follows divides the Western side of the Sierra's from the Kern Valley which runs North to South down the center of the Southern Sierras. The Kern River drains the central mountains from almost as far north as King's Canyon south to Lake Isabella. Much of the drive along this highway is on the Eastern side of the ridge so there are fantastic views of the Kern Valley. Eventually the road meets the Parker Pass Rd which runs somewhat east to west and will take the driver down into the Kern Valley near Johnsondale. Once on the Kern River Highway it is a short drive to the turn-off which is Sherman Pass Road.

Sherman Pass Road climbs almost straight out of the Kern River Canyon. I say canyon because, at this point in the valley the climb into and out of the valley are very steep. In Fact Sherman Pass is 9200 feet above sea level. It is as beautiful a drive as it is steep. Over the pass we went and stopped at one of the National Park camp grounds. At this time I can not remember which. It was at either Troy Meadows or Fish Creek. Both are above 7000 feet above sea level.

We made camp, an easy thing to do with a van-camper. It was relatively early so I spent the afternoon fishing. In the "High Sierra" where we were there is a very local fish called the Golden Trout. Somewhat elusive to my experience, but very pretty trout. I caught a few small ones which I released. I was hoping for larger and "legal" sized, but did not dine on trout that day. For our evening camp meal we had the usual boxed vegetable and hamburgers.

The next day dawned very cold. It was June, I really did not expect it to freeze. I had filled a bucket with water the evening before for morning use. It was frozen solid. I should have anticipated cold, we were near 7500 feet up. We managed to get some breakfast made and consumed. Then we continued on our way to China Lake. The drive off of the mountains to the East is always an experience. There is a lower meadow area near the very small town of Kennedy Meadows at around 6,214 feet. The last time I checked, there are 28 residents of Kennedy Meadows. We drove through very early and it seemed no one was up.

Picking up Kennedy Meadows Road we made our way to 9 Mile Canyon Road and on down into the High Desert area that is south of Owen's valley and north of Inyokern. We picked up US 395 there and proceeded to CA 178 and east to Ridgecrest and China Lake. Here is where "calling ahead" might have helped. Our friend was not in town. OK, what to do? We talked about it. Neither of us had been to Death Valley so we gassed up and headed east. East for a bit anyway. CA 178 takes a turn to the north becoming the Trona Road and beyond Trona, the Trona-Wildrose Road. We followed that on into Searles Valley where the town of Trona sits on the northwestern edge of Searles Lake. Please remember, we are traveling the high desert of California. When I say lake, there is usually no visible water involved unless it is raining cats and dogs. Did you ever watch the old TV shows Death Valley Days? Borax mines. Dry lake beds.

Past Trona the road crosses over a ridge of mountains and drops into the southern end of Panamint Valley. As we passed through that valley we saw a sign pointing to Ballarat. I'd read about this place, a ghost town. We took a side trip, not far, and visited this iconic town cum movie set. We spent some time exploring there and along some of the more interesting dirt roads leading up into the mountains. We had also spent some time at a few other spots along the way and had used up most of the day. Eventually one or both of us decided to get a move on and continued on to Death Valley. At the north end of Panamint Valley near Panamint Springs CA 178 intersects with CA 190 which, if taken to the east, enters Death Valley. We climbed the mountain along the road coming to Towne Pass at about 9:30 pm. It was still hot here. It was June.

It had been hot down in the other valleys we had passed through as well. California's High Desert area varies in altitude above sea level from valley to valley. Near Inyokern the elevation is 2,434 feet. China Lake/Ridgecrest is at 2,350 feet. Searles Lake Bed is 1,617 feet and Ballarat lies at 1,079 feet. Between each lake bed are mountain peaks rising to much greater heights. Overlooking all to the west is Mt Whitney, the lower 48's highest peak at 14,505 feet. A few peaks in the Panamint range may exceed 6 or 7,000 feet. The Towne Pass rises to 4,965 feet, and, as I said it was till hot there. Not as hot as was to come. We might have been complaining about 80 degrees F at Towne Pass.

We entered the Death Valley Park and continued down the mountain through Stove-Pipe and on to Furnace Creek. It was well past 10:00 PM. The temperature at Furnace Creek was 110 Degrees F. No plan for pitching a tent. We opened all the doors of the van to try to catch a breeze. There were none. We stripped off all and lay atop sleeping bags and tried to sleep.

Why are many very low places so hot? In reality they are much like a convection oven. At Death Valley you have a place that is relatively flat along the bottom. The valley is ringed by mountains. As direct sunlight shines on the desert rock and soil it is heated by short wave radiation from the sun. The rock and soil re-emit that radiation in long wave form. The air absorbs some of that heat and much more by conduction, simply by touching the rock and soil. Heated air rises. As the heated air rises along the mountain sides it does what all good gasses are supposed to do, expand. Expanding a gas causes it to cool. A cooling gas falls creating added pressure on the gas below it and itself. Conversely, compressing a gas causes it to heat. The falling gas or air above the valley creates a cap. The normal process of that heat being eventually lost to space is halted and the valley remains hot through the night only to be heated again during the day.

One other factor is involved at Death Valley. It is very low, 282 feet below sea level at Bad Water. That extra 282 feet provides additional atmospheric pressure to the air trapped at the surface.

Very occasionally an extremely strong frontal boundary may mix the air in the valley with cooler temps. The Sierra Nevada mountain range to the West is a very good barrier, though. It takes a very powerful system to reach the region of Death Valley. Most systems loose most of their moisture content riding up the Western slope of the Sierra Nevadas and are so week that they ride over the desert valleys with little effect on the valley floors.

Early morning in Death Valley can be exceptional. The suns rays lighting any cirrus above the valley can create surreal skies. As the sun rises above the Amargosa Mountains to the east and the early rays strike the tops of the Panamint Mountains on the west, the entire valley changes by shades and degrees of shades of reds, greens, and browns. We had no real plan for the day so we watched the sunrise then made a decision. What else? Keep driving. We had a little more than 24 hours until we had to be back to work.

That day we continued southeast to Bad Water, then, on out of the Park to the Death Valley Junction. I sat at the cross roads for a bit. Turn left, I did and we were headed along CA 127 which becomes NV 373 into Nevada. We traveled to US 95 and headed for Beatty Nevada. Stopping along the way periodically, we took a little time to visit a house made of Whiskey bottles in the ghost town of Ryolite. We continued back to Beatty, Ryolite is just a few miles west of Beatty, and north across the desert until we reach Scotty's Junction and headed back towards Death Valley through Grapevine Canyon and to Scotty's Castle. It is hard to describe this castle. I think the Hurst Mansion crossed with a Spanish Mission may do it. Very cool.

This was really going to be our last "OOH and AAW" spot on this trip. We had taken up a half a day so far. Look at a map. What took a paragraph above took many hours to do. We kind of had a system worked out. My friend took the pictures and I drove. If something caught one or the other of our fancies we would stop, take pictures, and get back to moving. We did that back through the north end of Death Valley. We took CA 190 again, but, toward the west passing out of Death Valley, across Panamint Valley and across the desert mountains to Owen's Valley. From there we took the good roads. US 395, CA 14, CA 178 across Walker Pass (only 5,250 feet), past Lake Isabella, through Bakersfield and back through the San Joaquin Valley to Lemoore.

We arrived back to our homes late that night. We had slept huddled in sleeping bags against the cold one night. We had slept stripped naked in blistering heat one night. I had driven many, many miles. It was an awesome adventure.