Eastern Sierra Trip

We planned to go to Bishop, CA for a couple of nights as a getaway in the Eastern Sierras but the B&B I tried to book only had a room with a queen bed. The lady said that most of the rooms had been booked for quite a while as it would be Mule Days. That is a week long series of events featuring mules and teams. No thanks, not because of the mules but because of all the people.

The next thought was to find another place on that side of the Sierras. We booked a room at the Double Eagle Resort in June Lake, CA which is situated just below Carson Peak in a beautiful setting.

The Town of June Lake

 Double Eagle Resort 

View from our deck

Stream by Silver Lake

We had a very nice dinner at this restaurant.

The next morning we went to Bodie State Historical Park which is an old ghost town that was founded in the 1870s after a gold strike.  Bodie is at the 8000' elevation.  At it's peak it had a population of over 10,000 but the boom only lasted a few years and the town declined to just a few hardy souls.  From time to time there was renewed interest in extracting gold with new methods and the town continued. 

In 1932 a fire destroyed 95% of the town.  It eventually became state property and a historic park.  None of the buildings have been restored but are maintained as best possible to keep them from deteriorating further.

At the church a docent provide a great history of the town and answered all our question on Bodie and some of the surrounding area.

 Many of the interiors of the buildings contain the furniture and things as they were when people left.

Gas pumps from the early 1900s

At the peak of the gold boom there were 9 stamp mills running which consumed 90 cords of wood a day to generate the steam to power the mills.  This is the Standard Mine Stamp Mill and is the only one remaining.  It consumed 20 cords of wood a day until electricity was brought in and electric motors replaced the steam engines.

Pictures of some of the remaining building around town

Bodie is 12 miles off US Hwy 395 on state route 270.  The road is a well paved and maintained road for 9 miles.  The last 3 miles is state property and is a unpaved rough gravel road with potholes and washboard all the way.  It was worth it though as we have wanted to see Bodie many times when were n the area but just never made it before.

The next day we headed home and encountered rain and hail on and off but nothing bad.  After we passed the towns of Walker and Coleville the sky was very black ahead of us and we knew we would be in heavy rain or hail.  As we approached the summit the road turned white with 2-3" of hail on the roadway and we saw where someone had slid off the road and up a embankment but luckily had managed to get back on the road.

We had some rain, hail and snow over Carson Pass and some below.

Overall a nice trip and nice one time to not be towing the trailer.