Prowl'n America: Lone Pine, CA

Oct. 29, 2018

We arived in Lone Pine about 11 am, hoping to pick up the water heater we ordered 2 weeks earlier before the Post Office closed for lunch. They had our Amazon package, but NO water heater. After a quick email to the supplier, they said it was due to arrive the next day. It did arrive the next day but I couldn’t pick it up until late in the afternoon.

I was going to take pictures of the install process, but I got so involved I forgot to take any. Although it took much longer than anticipated (it always does) all went well and we have hot water on tap again.

While there’s free boondocking in the Alabama Hills north west of town, but we stayed in Tuttle Creek BLM campground, $4 a night with the senior pass. We stayed here in June of 2017 and loved it. Tuttle Creek is one of those places with great views in any direction you look. To the west are the craggy Sierra’s with Mt. Whitney.

Morning light on the Eastern Sierra's

Sunrise over the Inyo mountains.

View from the camper window.

To the east is the valley 1300 ft below and the multi colored Inyo mountains.

To the north and south of us was the plane we were sitting on with the mountain range receeding into the distance.

Tuttle Creek is all dry camping with vault toilets and a central water source in every loop. It’s one of our favorite BLM/Forest Service campgrounds,

The Alabama Hills are famous as a movie location since the beginning of movies. Mostly westerns but also films as diverse as Star Trek, Star Wars, Iron Man and the campy Tremors in 1990. The Museum of Western Film History chronicles the local movie history.

A few miles north of Lone Pine is the Manzanar National Historic site. Manzanar is one of 9 “relocation camps” hastily constructed to house Japanese Americans from the west coast during World War II. Over 10,000 people lived at this site from 1942 till the camp closed in 1945.

The only original stuctures that remain are the stone guard shack and Gym / Meeting Hall (now the visitors center) completed in 1944. There are reconstructed Barracks, Mess Hall, Latrine, Fire Station, Guard Tower and Barbed Wire Fence.

The unearthed Merritt Park

Reconstructed barracks

"Monument to console the souls of the dead"

While we were in the Bishop Visitors Center we learned of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory near Big Pine, CA, about 50 miles north of Lone Pine. The first Monday of the month they have a tour open to the public. We made a day trip of it visiting the Big Pine Canyon and the home of the Palisade Glacier , the southernmost permanent glacier in North America. While seeing the glacier would have required a long hike, we did have a nice view for a picnic lunch.

The Radio Observatory tour started at 1 pm and consists of a 30 min talk followed by a tour of the 130-foot/40-meter radio telescope constructed in 1968.