Sierra Loop - Operation Normal - Wednesday, September 5, 2018 Continued

Waning Crescent Moon

What do normal people do on an eastern Sierra vacation? I wanted to find out, so I shadowed all the cars leaving Yosemite via Hwy 120 toward Mono Lake. I was determined to learn how to have fun  like a regular old Jim cruising the highway and pulling over to see what's what. Maybe take a day hike, eat lunch by a lake, chat with Peggy and Sal from Reno, pet their dog and squint into the Sun like regular Jims do. Take a selfie by a historical marker. Buy a coffee mug with my name in block letters under a picture of Half Dome in the gift shop at the Mobile station.

Oh by the way, there is a Mobile station near the intersection of Tioga Pass Road (Hwy 120) and US 395. You can get gas there, of course, but the used-to-be-cool thing about it is the Whoa Nellie Deli inside. There is a gift shop, too, but the thing that used to be cool was the food, cooked by a former chef or something like that. It was really good and pretty cheap at first, maybe around the turn of the century. Now the food looks pretty ordinary and the prices are all jacked up. Good grief, people have loved the Whoa Nellie Deli to death, too. It even has its own Wikipedia page, etc.

I ran into the Deli, failed miserably at hanging around with the throngs of people inside, ran back outside, took a snapshot of the lake, and scooted the heck out of there. One thing that can't get too screwed up is the view of Mono Lake and Negit Island.

Mono Lake and Negit Island

Mono Lake, of course, is famous because of the history of the Los Angeles Department of Power and Water's nefarious scheme to corral the lion's share of eastern Sierra water and send it south via the LA Aqueduct to fill up your swimming pool and rinse off your Lamborghini. Mono Lake, without its annual replenishing from Sierran streams, nearly died and so did the lifestyle of a gazillion migratory birds that depend on it for survival. Only a major citizen rebellion stopped LADPW from robbing Mono Lake of its very last drop. Bravo, citizens, bravo. Stay vigilant.

Highly recommended reading: Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. In it you will find the story of LADPW and Mono Lake and everything else you might ever want to know about water and history and politics in the West. That book changed the trajectory of my life completely. Right after reading it, I met a set of brilliant  teachers who positively shaped the ways I see the physical world and inspired me to be the best student and human being I could be. The fact that I have to make a special project out of trying to act normal has nothing to do with them whatsoever haha.

From the Whoa Nellie Deli, I hung a right and headed south on US 395, away from the Boot Fire and toward Convict Lake. There are no obvious convicts there today. Possibly there never were any convicts there. The Paiute didn't call it Convict Lake, they called it Wit-sa-nap. Then the local Mono County fellers called it Monte Diablo Lake for a while, Then one day, a gaggle of prisoners escaped from Carson City, split up into two bunches, killed a Pony Express rider named Billy Poor (poor Billy, insert sad face here), got everybody and his uncle p.o.ed, and eventually ate posse lead like all bad guys do. Monte Diablo Creek was changed to Convict Creek and eventually the lake followed suit. Is any of this true? I do not know. But a good legend brings in the tourists and the fishermen, so what the heck, why not?

What I do know is that the bottom of Convict Lake was originally scooped out by a glacier and when the glacier melted back as the climate warmed up, it left behind a terminal moraine (a big pile of rubble) that acts as a dam and lateral moraines (big piles of rubble) that act like side walls, containing the water that flows down out of the mountains into a gorgeous, clear mountain lake at about 7,850 feet above sea level. The mountains behind it are capped by colored, folded metamorphosed sediments, the remains of an old ocean floor that was lifted up by the enormous forces of the Sierra batholith and the Sierra Frontal Fault. It's mighty fine to look at.

Convict Lake aka Wit-sa-nap

If you are blessed with healthy limbs, you can hike on trail all the way around the lake, an absolutely beautiful, but hot, way to spend a good chunk of the day. Perhaps the coolest feature of this popular stop, though, is the approximately one mile long asphalt path from the parking lot down a ramp right next to the water. Wheelchairs can maneuver their way to sturdy lakeside decks with railings. That means that fishing in an alpine lake is accessible here for a whole lot of people who rarely get such an experience. I for one am thoroughly impressed. If that kind of thing is what it means to be normal, I am all for it.

Rose Hips along the trail around Convict Lake

Peace, Love, and Day Hikes,

Jim

TBC