Lake Sabrina

Lake Sabrina Route (click on map to enlarge)

On Friday afternoon, we drove up to Lake Sabrina. The lake is at the end of Highway 168, about 19 miles from Bishop.

Our Jeep was straining during parts of the trip when the elevation went up rapidly, but during the summer the great part about high elevations is the drop in temperature.

Back in Bishop (4,150 ft elevation) the temp was in the mid-90s, but at Lake Sabrina (9,128 ft elevation) it was in the mid-70s.

The first thing you notice about Lake Sabrina is how low the water level is. Jan and I guessed it was at least 25 feet down.

We plan to come back and try some of the hiking trails.

Photos from our trip . . .

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PANORAMAS

Structure on the Left is a Dam (click on photo to enlarge)

View from the Dam (click on photo to enlarge)

MOUNTAIN STREAM

On a Roll

Since there’s not much grass in the dessert, Ellie is making the most of our campground lawn . . .

The Silver Miner in Site #60

I guess this is #2 in my “The People You Meet” series . . .

The Georgian (US, not Soviet) in Site #60 owns and operates several mines, a few of which are in this area. He camps here for a month at a time and works his local silver mine.

He showed me ore samples from 4 of his mines — 2 silver and 2 gold. In the photo below, he said that the ore on the lower left produced 2,000 ounces of silver per ton while the ore on the upper left produces over 6,000.

The two samples on the left are from gold mines.

There’s Silver In Them There Hills

It just looked like colored rocks to me, but I’m not in the business.

Anyway, he said some folks from Beverly Hills are interested in buying one of his silver mines.

He also said he locates sunken treasure and was planning a trip to England to check out a site.

Who knows?

Manzanar

Jan and I spent Saturday morning at Manzanar. Here is what we saw . . .

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For further information . . . www.densho.org.

Movie Flats

Just off Whitney Portal Road (Click To Enlarge)

On Thursday afternoon we drove down to Lone Pine (about an hour away) to check out the “Movie Flats” in the Alabama Hills.

On the drive there we passed Manzanar which was a Japanese internment camp during World War II. It’s now a national historic site which we’re definitely going to visit during our stay in Bishop.

Movie Flats Jeep Trip

At the start of the Movie Flats Road there’s a plaque that says:

“Since 1920, hundreds of movies and TV episodes, including Gunga Din, How the West Was Won, Khyber Rifles, Bengal Lancers and High Sierra, along with The Lone Ranger and Bonanza, with such stars as Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gary Cooper, Gene Autrey, Glenn Ford, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne, have been filmed in these rugged Alabama Hills with their majestic Sierra Nevada background.

Plaque dedicated by Roy Rogers, whose first starring feature was filmed here in 1938.”

What a great place to film! Mountains, foothills, desert, valley, weird rocks, . . .

To get to Movie Flats we drove down Whitney Portal Road which leads to (wait for it) Whitney Portal (elevation 7,800 feet) the jumping off point for Mount Whitney (14,500 feet) climbers. Whitney Portal is on our To See list.

Here are some photos from the trip:

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This is a movie of us driving to the valley floor . . .