Mountain Lakes
Eastern Sierra
October 7, 2021
We left Bishop, and since our itinerary had already changed due to the smoke, we made new plans and decided to head north on US 395 to some areas we had missed while staying at Mammoth.
We went first to Convict Lake, about 40 minutes north, and saw fall colors around a nice lake. The lake was renamed from its traditional Mono name by American settlers after an incident on September 23, 1871, in which a group of convicts escaped from prison in Carson City, NV, and took refuge near the lake. We drove back to US 395 and continued north about a half hour to the June Lakes Loop road. This loop is about 16 miles on CA158 and goes by four beautiful lakes. Of course, here we saw more fall colors along the lakes.
A view of the
mountains from
along US 395
Convict Lake above and below.
June Lake Loop Drive
We then went back to US 395 and drove south to Rock Creek Canyon Lake, at 9,600 feet, which was perhaps the most impressive in terms of fall colors up the canyon and to the lake. The next two photos are from this part of the drive.
We retraced our steps to Bishop and had lunch at famous Schat’s Bakery, home of Sheepherder’s bread.
From there we drove north on US 6 along the White Mountains and saw White Mountain Peak and Boundary Peak (the highest mountain in Nevada).
The drive was about two hours to the silver mining town of Tonopah, where we spent the night. It was just about closing time when we arrived, so we missed the interesting-looking mining museum. We had to console ourselves with freshly canned beer from the local brewery. They literally canned it for us while we watched.
Tomorrow we will head to Las Vegas via Death Valley National Park.
