Day 19: Bodie & Over the Pacific Crest

Miles travelled:Â 7169 to 7483  (total of 314 miles/ 505 kilometres)
Weather:  clear & sunny
Highlight of the day:  Bodie & Sonora Pass

We woke up at 6.50 am.  Disa’s friend Chip (a chipmonk – his mum wasn’t terribly creative in naming him!) joined her while she was making coffee and Aunt Jemima visited (code words for making pancakes).  Scott didn’t believe her as Chip scampered off whenever he came close.  When Scott came to have breakfast, Chip and friends seemed to be trying to break into the van!  Luckily they didn’t succeed.  But Scott observed enough of them to be amazed at how they can be frolicking around, then suddenly freeze and NOTHING moves.

We made our way back to 395 and geocached our way north, passing Mono Lake, and made our way to Bodie State Historical Park.  Bodie is a genuine California gold mining ghost town that is being maintained in a state of ‘arrested decay’, i.e. they endeavour to preserve the buildings in the state they are rather than fixing them up to a false state of repair.  In its heyday in the 1880s Bodie had a population of close to 7,000, however when the gold seam failed people left often leaving behind most of their belongings as transporting anything but essentials out of this remote area was difficult and expensive.  Today only approximately 5 percent of the buildings that once stood here remain, but there are still quite a number (and Scott probably photographed all of them. . .).  It is eerie walking down the streets that have bits and pieces of yesteryear lying about, looking through windows that have shreds of old curtains and other belongings and furniture under a healthy layer of dust, etc.  At the entry station you receive quite informative walking tour information, giving the names of the people and businesses that occupied the buildings, however it would have been much better if we could have had Corri with us there to really make the town come alive!

We left Bodie at around 1.30 pm and stopped in Bridgeport for lunch.  We chose a little local cafe that looked promising but were wondering about the wisdom of our choice when we heard the cook who was going off duty called ‘see what you can salvage from that lettuce’ over his shoulder as he left! However our sandwiches were quite yummy and seemed fresh, so no harm done.

The day before, when passing through Lone Pine, we had asked at the Eastern Sierras Visitors Centre for information regarding which passes were open to the Western side of the Sierras and were informed that only 88 was open .  Before we reached Bodie there was a road sign with up-to-date pass opening information, and 88 was still the only route open.  Further north than we wanted to go, but at least we didn’t have to go all the way south to Bakersfield!  So we were quite surprised to see as we approached it that Sonora Pass was open!  Yes!  The scenery while driving through was absolutely spectacular!  Pines, rock formations, SNOW, rivers of snowmelt, SNOW – higher than the van roof in several places!  It was easy to see why it had been closed as the snow came right up to the edge of the road, however the road itself was dry and safe.  This was unbelievable luck as the pass opened for the year while we were at Bodie and saved us a couple hours of driving!  Upon reaching Sonora we stopped at a grocery store so Scott could have a bit of a break from pasta – and also got him a raspberry cheese croissant for being a good boy.

We continued on to Yosemite to pick up the usual general and trail information, then made our way back out to find a camp as, predictably, all the Yosemite campgrounds were full.  There had been so many turn-off signs showing campgrounds as we drove to Yosemite that we weren’t worried about finding a campground with a free site, so we made our way down the first turn-off on the way from Yosemite to investigate that campground.  It was scary.  It was a commercial campground, and there was NO space between camp sites.  It was like a car park, but with feral children running around.  We turned around and returned to the main road.  We took the next turn-off that showed camping, which seemed promising as it lead down a beautiful, narrow road through gorgeous trees. . .and ended in a camp ground that looked like a car park.  We drove in to investigate a bit more and realised it was the same hideous camp we had gotten to by the other road!!  Scary, twilight zone time.  Just in case we didn’t find anything better later (and in case all roads in the area lead to this place) we asked whether they were full.  We were informed that this campground/car park was for strange people who had a membership; for a casual site, we would have to check with someone at different building (he pointed up the road we had come down earlier), etc etc.  We left and hoped we’d never make it back there!

The next turn off took us to a lovely State Park campsite.  It was 8 pm and there were two sites left, so we pulled into a lovely one next to the extremely friendly campground host.  We chatted with him for quite a while, updating him on the goings on of our close mate Mick Dundee, etc etc etc.  He talked for quite a while until we had to retreat from the mossies.  Dinner of beef tacos with sour cream, salsa and pickled cactus (pickled cactus Mmmmmm…).