Labor Day 2015 Rockhounding and Fishing
Sept 9, 2015 22:26:38 GMT -5
drocknut, quartz, and 6 more like this
Post by paulshiroma on Sept 9, 2015 22:26:38 GMT -5
My boys and I just got back from our annual Labor Day “guys trip” to Bishop California for some fishing, hiking, rockhounding, and sightseeing. What a blast. My boys are getting older and are able to do a lot more but I also recognize that Andrew won’t be with us much longer and Nathaniel is coming up quickly behind him. Our trip this year took us to Lake Sabrina and June Lake for fishing, Lake Crowley and the Queen Obsidian site for rockhounding, Benton Station, the Nevada border, the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, and Keeler for sightseeing (and some impromptu rockhounding).
Day One:
Lake Sabrina. Beautiful area for hiking and stream fishing. The trout are everywhere in the stream and ponds and are very smart. They ignored everything I could pull out of my tackle box but the boys had a good time.
Day Two – Morning:
June Lake. We had a pontoon boat from 6:00 to Noon and we arrived at the marina at 6:45. It was also about 38 degrees and cooler on the water with the heavy breeze. I had my hands full trying to keep the boat in one place as the wind was strong enough that it basically dragged the anchor. It was also cold enough that I had trouble stringing hooks and lines – my hands were shaking too much. I ended up letting Andrew and Nathaniel fish while I managed the boat. We got skunked again. Others were catching so I chalked it up to the Rockhounding gods telling us to switch past times.
Nathaniel at 7:00 AM … alert and line in the water.
Nathaniel at 10:00 AM … no fish …
How Andrew fishes.
Day Two – Afternoon:
We had lunch in June Lake at the Tiger bar and then headed off to Benton Crossing to the north side of Lake Crowley for some rockhounding. That's a beautiful drive through some amazing terrain. The eastern most leg of Benton Crossing, just before it connects to 120 is a two mile stretch with a 12% grade heading (what felt like) straight down. The road signs were important
as the first part of the descent is a descending left-hand turn that (considerately) puts you on the outside part of the road with a 1,500 foot drop on your right. The speed limit sign was 35 mph ... yeah, right. We dropped into low gear and crawled our way down. That was exciting and had my boys yelling and laughing.
Benton Crossing:
Lake Crowley:
Lots of obsidian at Crowley but you have to do some searching to find the larger nodules. Most of the pieces are small - less than an inch. In about 30 minutes, we had about a quart, most of them 2 inches or better in size. Everything is going to need to be polished... it really is rough.
Obsidian from Crowley:
Then it was off to highway 6 northbound to Nevada so Andrew and Nathaniel could accurately state that they visited another state while we were on vacation.
Drove up a few miles to the Queen Obsidian site. The place looks like someone had tried to put a gate up on the dirt road that heads to the dig site and that someone else inconsiderately tore it down. We decided to err on the side of caution and respect the property owner’s rights to keep folks off his land and contented ourselves with what we could pick up along the highway.
Day Three:
Headed back out of Bishop with a couple of detours. First stop was the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest about 10,000 feet up in the White Mountains just east of Bishop. Beautiful area. If you have the opportunity, drive up there. It’s slow and winding and 15 miles will take you about an hour as, if you’re like me, you’ll stop and take photos every few miles. Highway 168 was an experience as well as it climbs steadily and narrows to a single lane with shale cliffs on either side.
On the way back down Westgard Pass we stopped at several turnouts to see if we could find any fossils in the shale. No dice.
After getting back down, we continued our trek south towards home but included a detour around Owens Dry Lake along Highway 136 to 190 to see Keeler and at least see the range where Cerro Gordo is located. Talk about desolate. I thought Keeler was abandoned but there were still residents. I can't imagine living out there. Dolomite mines as well (pic below, extreme left hand, lower corner).
So, what should have been a four hour return leg turned into a nine hour sight seeing trip. We left Bishop at 9:00 AM and arrived at home just after 6:00 PM. Barbara considerately had dinner waiting for us ... I love my wife ... she's awesome. Long trip but we had a blast. Looking forward to next years’ trip already.
Hope you enjoyed the photos.
Day One:
Lake Sabrina. Beautiful area for hiking and stream fishing. The trout are everywhere in the stream and ponds and are very smart. They ignored everything I could pull out of my tackle box but the boys had a good time.
Day Two – Morning:
June Lake. We had a pontoon boat from 6:00 to Noon and we arrived at the marina at 6:45. It was also about 38 degrees and cooler on the water with the heavy breeze. I had my hands full trying to keep the boat in one place as the wind was strong enough that it basically dragged the anchor. It was also cold enough that I had trouble stringing hooks and lines – my hands were shaking too much. I ended up letting Andrew and Nathaniel fish while I managed the boat. We got skunked again. Others were catching so I chalked it up to the Rockhounding gods telling us to switch past times.
Nathaniel at 7:00 AM … alert and line in the water.
Nathaniel at 10:00 AM … no fish …
How Andrew fishes.
Day Two – Afternoon:
We had lunch in June Lake at the Tiger bar and then headed off to Benton Crossing to the north side of Lake Crowley for some rockhounding. That's a beautiful drive through some amazing terrain. The eastern most leg of Benton Crossing, just before it connects to 120 is a two mile stretch with a 12% grade heading (what felt like) straight down. The road signs were important
as the first part of the descent is a descending left-hand turn that (considerately) puts you on the outside part of the road with a 1,500 foot drop on your right. The speed limit sign was 35 mph ... yeah, right. We dropped into low gear and crawled our way down. That was exciting and had my boys yelling and laughing.Benton Crossing:
Lake Crowley:
Lots of obsidian at Crowley but you have to do some searching to find the larger nodules. Most of the pieces are small - less than an inch. In about 30 minutes, we had about a quart, most of them 2 inches or better in size. Everything is going to need to be polished... it really is rough.
Obsidian from Crowley:
Then it was off to highway 6 northbound to Nevada so Andrew and Nathaniel could accurately state that they visited another state while we were on vacation.
Drove up a few miles to the Queen Obsidian site. The place looks like someone had tried to put a gate up on the dirt road that heads to the dig site and that someone else inconsiderately tore it down. We decided to err on the side of caution and respect the property owner’s rights to keep folks off his land and contented ourselves with what we could pick up along the highway.
Day Three:
Headed back out of Bishop with a couple of detours. First stop was the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest about 10,000 feet up in the White Mountains just east of Bishop. Beautiful area. If you have the opportunity, drive up there. It’s slow and winding and 15 miles will take you about an hour as, if you’re like me, you’ll stop and take photos every few miles. Highway 168 was an experience as well as it climbs steadily and narrows to a single lane with shale cliffs on either side.
On the way back down Westgard Pass we stopped at several turnouts to see if we could find any fossils in the shale. No dice.
After getting back down, we continued our trek south towards home but included a detour around Owens Dry Lake along Highway 136 to 190 to see Keeler and at least see the range where Cerro Gordo is located. Talk about desolate. I thought Keeler was abandoned but there were still residents. I can't imagine living out there. Dolomite mines as well (pic below, extreme left hand, lower corner).
So, what should have been a four hour return leg turned into a nine hour sight seeing trip. We left Bishop at 9:00 AM and arrived at home just after 6:00 PM. Barbara considerately had dinner waiting for us ... I love my wife ... she's awesome. Long trip but we had a blast. Looking forward to next years’ trip already.
Hope you enjoyed the photos.
