soc.diver
Adventurist
Near the end of september my Dad, brother and one of our friends finally pulled ourselves together and got a long overdue introduction to overlanding. We planned a loop from Lee Vining, CA to Minden, NV that involved as little asphalt as possible. We are all new to the sport so we looked for a route with minimal rock crawling and good long distance trails. Our loop took us from Lee Vining, through Bodie, Aroura, Hawthorne, the Rawhide Mining district, past Sand Mountain, and back along the Pony Express Trail.
Our first rest halt was at Log Cabin Mine above Lee Vining, CA and overlooking Mono Lake. The night time temp was in the mid teens but we were glad to be out in it. Log Cabin Mine sits on a ledge at about 10,000ft with an epic view of the lake, desert and Sierra mountain range. The mine is also in remarkably good shape. It has been worked in different stages over the last century before it was finally abandoned. The equipment was too massive to haul out so much of it is still on site.
The beginning of day two was spent exploring the mine, mill, outbuildings and its workings. There is a large amount of equipment spread around the surrounding terrain. The lift still sits above the main shaft and attached to its cable and hoist. The vintage plastic safety fence does very little other than encourage you to low crawl up to the edge of the pit for a look (not recommended). After an hour of messing around we decided to get on the road and off to our first refuel point in Lee Vining.
We mounted up and headed down the mountain, along the north shore of Mono Lake and
out toward Bodie. The Aroura/Bodie Ghost Town Trail is well packed gravel and is in great shape. The view back toward the Sierra is legendary.
Bodie is a great spot with a lot of history, but was completely packed with
tourists. The road from Bridgeport is maintained enough to allow land yachts to drive all the way into the parking lot. I guess that is what we get for showing up on a Saturday on the last nice weekend of the summer. We made some lunch and then walked around the town with everyone else.
The next leg was the road between Bodi and our camp spot near Aurora. The road gets considerably rougher once you make the turn and head up into the hills. The section in the picture at the left was some kind of very loose shale that required some care to negotiate. About the time we hit the Nevada border my friend Eron dismounted his Honda 80 from my truck and able to scout
ahead and take this picture. We continued on up the hill and located Aurora about sundown. We made camp in the Pinyon trees on the ridge overlooking the old town site. About that time we tuned in to the National Weather Service and found out that a dry wind storm would blow up early the next morning and continue the entire next day. Some wind gusts were predicted to reach 80 MPH over the mountain passes so we secured all our gear in the vehicles. About midnight the wind did pick up but never reached more than about 25 MPH.
Continued in part 2...
Our first rest halt was at Log Cabin Mine above Lee Vining, CA and overlooking Mono Lake. The night time temp was in the mid teens but we were glad to be out in it. Log Cabin Mine sits on a ledge at about 10,000ft with an epic view of the lake, desert and Sierra mountain range. The mine is also in remarkably good shape. It has been worked in different stages over the last century before it was finally abandoned. The equipment was too massive to haul out so much of it is still on site.
The beginning of day two was spent exploring the mine, mill, outbuildings and its workings. There is a large amount of equipment spread around the surrounding terrain. The lift still sits above the main shaft and attached to its cable and hoist. The vintage plastic safety fence does very little other than encourage you to low crawl up to the edge of the pit for a look (not recommended). After an hour of messing around we decided to get on the road and off to our first refuel point in Lee Vining.
We mounted up and headed down the mountain, along the north shore of Mono Lake and
Bodie is a great spot with a lot of history, but was completely packed with
Continued in part 2...
