I was now north of Bishop, California, having headed to an area Carolyn was familiar with. It was to be our last camp together for the season as I had to head back to Canada. I also had to get out of the cold. Get out of the cold by going north, you ask? In this case, it is a valid strategy! But first, let me tell you about this area north of Bishop.
I followed Carolyn to the spot after we met for resupply in Bishop. One of the nice things about travelling with someone is you can share your local knowledge. She had camped in the area before and knew where the good spots were here. So I could just follow along without having to do a bunch of research before to see where I might be able to camp. You could just wing it in this area – there is a fair bit of boondocking to be found, but if you want a nice spot, a bit of research will yield you a better spot.
A view of the gorge from the upper camp
We were not far from the Owens River Gorge. There are some nice spots overlooking the gorge, but they were little small for our two rigs. We settled for a field just below the hill leading to the outlook, a nice enough spot with walking and riding trails all around us. The area is visited by the occasional vehicle, and even a bicycle or two – it’s not that far away from some small communities and acreage areas. The field was a bit unusual for the amount of ungulates that had been hanging around. I knew this as the the ground was thick with droppings. Fortunately, they were not around this spring, the droppings had dried up and were not stinky at this point.
Camp is in the distance
The weather had gotten chilly with temperatures dropping quite a bit below freezing every night. At least my furnace continued to work with the front cover plate off, so there was no urgency to find a real fix for that problem. But it got cold enough that I really should have plugged in my battery heater for my lithium batteries. When I bought them, I cheaped out and saved myself a couple of hundred dollars by not buying the self-heating ones that would keep the batteries from getting too cold to charge. I’m not worried about the discharge cycle – supposedly these are OK at slightly below freezing so I wasn’t pushing that too hard.
Looking back to the previous camp
The problem was that things were still quite cold in the battery bay in the morning when the sun started charging my batteries. Evidently, these batteries are not supposed to charge at below freezing, as in, there is a cutoff mechanism. But to be honest based on the literature I’m not sure of that. Rather it might just be that you’re not supposed to charge them at below freezing. At any rate, I see the charging cycle acts a little differently in the last while, hitting absorption sooner than before, say at around 90% full rather than 95%. I see the voltage start to spike as the batteries get close to full, triggering the absorption cycle. It’s not a huge spike, and the batteries seem to to be ok, but I could be stressing them more than needed.
Grom at the top of the penstock
The days warmed up enough for some exploring around with the motorcycle. I found a lot of boondocking in the area, although you still have to watch for private land. Driving along I would suddenly find myself surrounded by acreage housing, so check your maps to make sure you’re on actual public lands. Just because there is a fire ring does not mean it’s legal to overnight at a spot. I only encountered a couple of boondockers in my explorations, so at least this early in the season the area is pretty empty.
Looking down the penstock to the hydro generation
I explored south, going downhill back to some water works marked on the googles. There is a large underground pipe carrying water from Crowley Lake to a penstock that drops down into the Owens River Gorge. Strangely, I could take my motorcycle right into the area where the pipe comes out of the ground, then turns down the gorge to the hydro generation facility at the bottom. I say ‘strangely’, as everywhere else in the States these kind of facilities are fenced off and often remote surveilled. Considering the past ‘water wars’ history of farmers blowing up water works in their disputes over water rights, I am really surprised California has not adopted a higher security model for water infrastructure. It did make for some interesting pictures I’d normally not be able to get though. There are paved roads going all the way to the hydro works, and there is boondocking nearby too, for future reference.
I explored to the north, heading to what is called Toms Place, near Crowley Lake. Toms Place is a little village that has grown up around a general store of the same name. It has been around for a long time as a supply place for vacationers in the area. The business is a store, restaurant and bar all in one. There certainly was some character to the place, although sadly no business to speak of at the time I was there. But it was early in the season – I’m sure in the summer they are busy.
I decided to visit the lake too, hoping there might be boondocking down there. Sadly, at least where I went by the dam there wasn’t anything. There is some boondocking not too far away, but you have to watch to make sure you are off the private property in the area. I never did check out things on the other side of the dam – I suspect you’d find boondocking out there somewhere.
Overall, it was an interesting area, but I had only a little time left in the USA. Plus the weather was going to be cold in the Sierras for the next week, so I decided it was time to part ways with Carolyn for the season and head north. North is normally colder, but in this case I was heading for areas a lot lower than I had been – I’d be warmer despite being further north. I had been with people for the most part for the last while – it was time to adjust to being on my own again. I also had to adjust to travelling much further each stop – I had a ways to go to make it to the Canadian border. So, off I went, travelling north again.
My plan was to hit the border in about a week. So I was not going to be driving everyday, but each day driving had to cover a good amount of ground. I prefer to stay at least two nights in an area especially if I want to see anything. I had not been to Oregon before, so I hoped to camp in at least a couple of spots following up the east side of the coastal mountain range. My first day driving took me past Mono Lake, with a stop at the visitor center to see what Ken Rockwell visits every year on his photo tours. Unfortunately, I was there mid-day, not the best light to be taking pictures in. I was also surprised to see how far down the lake was from the visitor center. I decided to stop half way down, contenting myself with a distant picture of the tufa forms on the lake shore. I had a lot of driving left to do, wanting at least to get past Reno that day.
I’m still a klick away from Mono Lake in this photo.
I continued on, with only a few short stops. Highway 395 cuts over into Nevada, passing through Reno. While I wasn’t interested in Reno, there was a lot of other stuff I was passing by like Lake Tahoe that I’d miss out on this time. My only stop was for the cheaper Nevada gas, which worked out perfectly having used only two tanks of expensive California gas while traveling north through the state. While I was there, I hit the Smith’s grocery for my last supply run in the States. I was being careful to not have a lot of fresh fruit and veg, to be able to cross over without issue into Canada.
Honey Lake has exactly one tree on the shore
I passed through Reno the way I pass through most cities in the States: without stopping. Reno, at least driving on the freeway, feels like a mini-version of Las Vegas, but with more hills and trees surrounding the area. At least the 395 (I-580) is a good freeway going north through town – I only slowed down for a construction zone while passing through.
Back towards Susanville
Continuing north, I passed back into California. There is the fruit patrol at the border, I had no issues just passing through. I was low on fruit anyways preparing for my return to Canada. The northeast corner of California I was in is pretty empty of people. Susanville is the only town of any size I passed through on the way to my first potential boondocking stop. I didn’t really see any of the town, driving around it on a bypass road. I had left the 395 for the time being, now heading up the 139 which is a winding road climbing into the hills to the north. There was a nice view at least, which I stopped for to photograph and let the speed demons go by.
Eagle Lake is in the distance
I had passed some potential boondocking spots already, heading for my more distant goal at Eagle Lake. The iOverlander reviews talked about potential lakeside camping, so I decided to stretch my driving time a bit to see if I could luck out on a spot by the lake. After a long stretch of windy narrow road, I come to the Eagle Lake spot. While I could have camped by the lake, I would have been close to the highway, with the water being high so you couldn’t get further away. Across the road was another spot tucked in beside a big tree. Investigating a spot up a rough road, I decided the tree spot would be good enough. It had a bit of traffic noise from the highway, but there wasn’t much for other potential spots in the area.
Eagle Lake road to wetter camping spots
After my sleep in a less than level rig, I decided this was only going to be a one-night spot. I had researched some better potential spots north, at Upper Klamath Lake. So that night was my last night in California for the ’25/26 snowbird season. The new day was going to be my first day camping in Oregon, a state I had not spent any time in so far. Join me there next time!
