Mt Whitney, Alabama Hills in the foreground
My way back to Canada north was following a different route than what I’ve done before, up the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas. It would be a bit chillier than what I’m used to, but I needed to test my furnace once and for all to see if it worked. The plan was to travel north with Carolyn for a while, she was familiar with the area so I’d get to benefit from her wisdom. But I was on my own for a bit as she had some RV issues to deal with. Join me as I encounter the Sierra Nevadas for the first time.
I was traveling north on US Route 395 – new to me, but familiar to Carolyn. But she was back in Barstow getting her rig fixed. I was on my own other than for a few boondocking pin suggestions from her to check out. My first stop was in Ridgecrest for a grocery resupply and some gas. Thanks to another foolish Middle East war excursion the US had just started, gas was going to be expensive, especially being California. A quick research on Gasbuddy and googles told me that gas prices were quite a bit more variable than I was used to. We are talking almost a buck a gallon on gas that started at the low $5s at that time. This was the end of March ’26, so just for fun, I looked up the prices the day I’m writing this (May 9th, ’26). I see gas prices ranging from $5.49 to $6.59 per US gallon, so even more variable, more so that rapidly increasing prices could account for. This will publish a month from now. Sorry, but I like having a buffer for the inevitable slow down in writing that’s going to happen when I’m visiting friends in Alberta.
To rub gas in the wound, the pump was setup to only take my credit card money in a maximum of $75 chunks. That was three card authorizations for one fill, ouchies! The Fastrip I was at really needs to have a discussion with their credit card company about bumping that limit – I’ve NEVER seen one that low in the USA before, going back to the start of my adventures in the rental! But at least my gas research saved me thirty bucks on my fill, that paid for any extra goodies I bought at the grocery store and then some. Speaking of grocery stores, I should note that this was my only stop at a Stater Bros grocery store. It turned out to be quite good – I’ll have to remember that the next time I’m in southern California.
I proceeded north on the 395, through what was pretty ‘meh’ desert scenery. Things started to get more interesting heading north, as the highway hugged the eastern edge of the Sierras, climbing up out of the desert into scrub with the occasional trees on the terrain above me. I didn’t make any stops along the way, wanting to maximise my boondocking search time. I really need not have hurried, Carolyn was going to be several days getting her RV fixed – I could setup camp anytime I wanted. I proceeded through Lone Pine, a cute little community whose primary purpose seems to be to serve all the people heading towards the Sierras and Mount Whitney. It was surprisingly more old motels and buildings rather than new modern stuff paid for by tourist dollars. I suspect the preservation instinct of the locals is strong in this area.
North of Lone Pine, I turned west, passing the northern end of the Alabama Hills. They don’t look like much from this end, but I’d find out later the ride down the west side of the hills is spectacular. I encountered a fellow at the side of the road with his hood up. Having been asked a zillion times on my walks if I’m OK, I stop to make sure he isn’t stranded. He’s not, but he said he’d had little luck finding boondocking beyond where I was going. Spots were few and taken if decent he said. That concerned me a little, but not a lot. I suspected from the conversation that he didn’t go very far out, but I’d see for myself in a few minutes.
Continuing on, I did indeed see some spots taken, but I was seeing a lot more of signs proclaiming ‘City of Los Angeles Private Property, no camping’. It seems most of the private land out here is owned by LA, which is actually water works having bought up land and water rights going way back in time, as I’d find out later reading some history of the area. In the meanwhile, I continued onto my first potential pin, which turned out to be behind one of these signs and a gate. There would be no going down to the creek to camp here. I continued on to the second pin with it having more promise being on National Forest Service land. Indeed, I arrive to find two spots marked with camping symbols, so it definitely was OK to camp here. There was a creek between the two spots and both looked to have at least enough level area for one rig. I decided further investigation up the road was not worth it – the aerial map did not show much for quite some ways up.
I was happy to have found a nice spot much easier than my last camp. The fellow I’d passed must have driven down the left branch of the road leading into the Alabama Hills for camping. That area did have limited spots that were mostly full while I was visiting the area. Where I was is away from the hills a bit, so no great view down, but still a good view of the Sierras and a nice creek to listen to and go splash in by camp. This is the only time I’d say that people camp by water rule was broken – here people wanted to camp on the Alabama Hills with the awesome views looking across to the Sierras and Mount Whitney if you picked the right spot.
I have to admit I was a bit ‘meh’ about the mountain view. I grew up looking at the Rocky Mountains from Calgary so I’m a little more blasé about great mountain views. I was more impressed when I approached the range on my motorcycle, hoping to visit Whitney Portal. The most direct trail to the mountain starts here, with a long switchback climb up the side of the mountain into a little valley required to get there. Most years, the road is still closed at the bottom of the switchback due to remaining snow further up. This year, with the heatwave we’d just gone through the snow had melted quickly and the road was open almost all the way in.
I climbed the switchback, seeing that this mountain was massive; a thousand foot gain was only enough to gain me entry into the valley that is the portal. Driving up the valley, I come to a gate with a small parking area. The last bit of road was still closed, although there was no snow remaining. That proved to be challenging for the people with the small trailer that came up, even though the sign at the bottom said ‘trailers not recommended’. There wasn’t a turn around, the only thing that saved them is that all the parking was not taken so they could use a couple of stalls to maneuver themselves to face downhill again. I’d been keeping a close eye on the trailer people as my motorcycle was parked near where they were trying to turn around. I can only imagine the chaos in the summer when it’s full tourist season up here.
Mt Whitney is poking up down the Portal Road
I continued on foot past the gate to the portal proper, it was only a short hike. There is a nice pond with a waterfall behind it, making for some pretty pictures. The store is closed this time of year, but if they were open they could be making steady business. There were a few obvious international tourists around. We all were lucky that day – not only was the area open unusually early, but the weather was warm and sunny, with relatively few people around. I walked up the first hundred meters of the Whitney trail to be able to say I’d been on it, reading the boards at the start with the many rules you need to comply with to head further up. Looking up at the mountains around me, I realized fully how massive they were. I was at a bit over 8000 feet up, looking at peaks that rose to 14,000 feet, another 6000 feet above me still. In the Canadian Rockies, 8000 feet is often the top, with “only” 2000 feet to climb up from the valley below. The clouds were interfering with my picture taking at this point, but it didn’t matter – the camera doesn’t capture the full effect of the massive rock faces in front of you.
View down to Owens Lake
The ride back down was equally thrilling. I could see some boondocking near the Whitney Portal road below the switchback, but you can also camp at Lone Pine Campground for free at that time of year. Just don’t expect the facilities to be open, you need to be boondocking self sufficient here, including your own toilet. It had been one of those days I was glad to have the motorcycle with me – it was the best way to experience the area.
Two camping spots, although hard to see with the big rocks all around
Carolyn arrived a couple of days later and decided to take the other of the two spots by the creek. That kept anyone else out of the area. But there was a third spot, further down the road from us that did get used one night. The road led to a locked gate, which kept the traffic down to mostly non-locals exploring the area. The road was also quite rough – I’d only take something with a bit more clearance than I have down that way. The googles maps however didn’t know any of this. It had tried to navigate me to our camp by coming in the “shortcut” way coming up the road that followed the creek. The problem was, from the main road, you had to ford the creek first, then follow a cart path to a second locked gate further downstream. I tried to submit a correction to the googles, marking the road as private, but they wouldn’t take it. I guess people will continue to be directed that way, although you might have some success as the farmer came along and unlocked the gates while we were there. The smart people will figure out something is not right when they come to a creek ford just past the first turn. This isn’t the first time the googles has led me on a wild goose chase down crappy to non-existent backroads.
The blue wires are the thermostat control; thought there might be an issue, but nope, immediately started having issues as soon as I put on the front vent again. The furnace works just fine at the moment with the front cover off.
The heat wave had finally passed, and we were high enough now that the nights cooled off enough to need a furnace some of the time. I fire up the beast, hoping that everything is good, but no – I almost immediately get the same constant cycling on-off with barely enough heat overall to warm things up in the morning. So back to another round of troubleshooting. For fun, I decided to burn a bit of someone else’s electricity and try the googles Genny Neigh to see how it did with troubleshooting the issue. I had already collected some new data: the furnace suddenly worked just fine if I left the front vent/cover off. While both me and Genny suspected a blockage of some sort in the furnace, Genny added that there could be a cross-flow happening between the intake and the exhaust air, messing up the air-fuel ratio. It was interesting watching Genny ask follow up questions like a human would, zeroing on on the likely issue pretty quick. I can see why people are using this AI stuff, but using it to replace thinking is going to end badly for us methinks. At any rate, the furnace works with the cover off. For now, I’ll take that as a temporary fix and go for a permanent fix when I’m somewhere more suitable for tearing apart a furnace again.
Manzanar original Entrance/exit
I had visited the Manzanar relocation center and Alabama Hills on the motorcycle while in the area. I’ll save most of that for the next post, with a great drive going out along Movie Road to see the Alabama Hills. If you want to see more pictures of the Sierra Nevadas, I have created a set on my Flickr account covering this visit and pictures taken along the way past here. See you for the ride out!
