Christmas in the Eastern Sierra

Christmas in the Eastern Sierra

Shrouded Mono Lake
Shrouded Mono Lake

For the first seven years I lived in California I always flew back to Michigan to visit my family at Christmas. Each year I would inevitably face midwest snowstorms, holiday travel crowds, cancelled flights, etc. But it was always worth it to visit my family.

Last year was the first year I skipped the holiday travel – the overwhelming aggravation of it, combined with ticket prices that were 3x the previous year’s cost made me switch my family visit to summer, and it was a great decision. I sure do miss the Christmas traditions, but trading it for less annoying travel and time on the beach in the summer is a compromise I’m willing to make. So I made the same decision this year.

Since we don’t have any family out here, we found ourselves with the second year of a non-committed Christmas. And what do we do when we find a free day in our calendar? We hit the road, of course. At the last minute, we decided to spend the holiday in our favorite place in the world – in a tent in the Eastern Sierra.

Christmas Morning Sunrise
Christmas Morning Sunrise

Driving out to Reno on the night of the 23rd was a breeze, surprisingly. No traffic and the weather was fine. We shacked up in a hotel that night and woke up on Christmas Eve morning to the view of snow-covered mountains. Not bad! After some holiday shopping at the Patagonia Outlet and Sierra Trading Post, we worked our way down 395 towards Bishop.

I don’t often get to see this side of the mountains in the winter since the passes that make the area most accessible to Bay Area residents are closed from November through June-ish. It’s so beautiful and completely different than summer and fall. When we crested Conway Summit and started down towards Lee Vining we were greeted with an amazing sight – a low cloud bank sitting on top of Mono Lake. I’ve never seen it like that before. Beautiful!

We worked our way down to Bishop where we camped outside of town in the climber campground known as “The Pit”. Here we met our friend Andy and his dog B who had spent the day climbing in the Happy Boulders. Our campsite had an incredible view of the snowy Sierra peaks of Mt Tom and the peaks of Humpreys Basin and Glacier Divide.

Tuttle Creek Campsite
Tuttle Creek Campsite

Sunrise over these peaks was one of the best I’ve seen in my life. While I’ve experienced amazing Eastern Sierra sunsets in the summer and fall, I’ve never seen sunrises like I did on this trip. Took my breath away every time. I didn’t even mind crawling out of the warm sleeping bag to sub-freezing temperatures each time.

Christmas Day was spent doing the “Bishop biathalon” – fishing and climbing. David caught a giant rainbow trout at Pleasant Valley Reservoir, then we enjoyed playing on the Happy boulders in the sun. The weather was gorgeous and there were a lot of people out enjoying the holiday.

On Christmas evening Paige and Greg joined us at The Pit, and then the next day we headed down to Tuttle Creek Campground outside of Lone Pine. We met with Theresa and the other Greg at Keough Hot spring and had a nice soak in the cold weather. It was really nice, especially since I’m used to visiting it when it’s closer to 90 degrees outside, not 40.

Mobius Arch and Mount Whitney
Mobius Arch and Mount Whitney

We still managed to cram in a lot of stuff on our final day out there. The morning was spent photographing some of the arches in the Alabama Hills. After a wonderful late breakfast at the Alabama Cafe in Lone Pine (highly recommended), we headed home via the south route around the Sierra.

We had one more stop to make, however. We popped off of 14 near Red Rock State Park and headed in to the hills to explore some old mines and a place called ‘Burro Schmidt Tunnel’. This is a 1/2 mile long tunnel blasted out of solid granite, built over the course of 38 years. Supposedly he built this tunnel through the mountain as a quick way to move the ore to the other side, but poor old Mr Schmidt never got around to mining anything.

It was great to spend the holidays with good friends in one of our favorite places. If I couldn’t be with my family, I can’t think of a better way I would have wanted to spend Christmas. The only thing I was missing was battery powered Christmas lights for the tent!

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Derrick

    The sunrise picture is wonderful.

  2. Gambolin' Man

    Awesome time to be up there, Calipidder! I envy you! Hopefully, you had a chance to read my Eastern Sierra post from a couple of posts ago – it’s long and winding and bloviating…what else is new! Happy New Year to you! Tom

  3. Randy

    You got some great shots there Rebecca!
    Are any of these taken with the Lumix? I’ve thought about a lighter weight backpacking camera, but I still have yet to see anything taken with one that compares to what i can capture with my big ole’ Canon 5D (Its full frame sensor just rocks!).
    How about tripods; do you use one? I bounce back and forth between my heavy but stable bogen and my cheap plastic slik one that picks up any little breeze. I think my next purchase will be a short carbon fiber one (pricey though).
    One last question, I noticed a little camera shake blur on the mine tunnel shot. Have you gotten yourself a nice 50mm prime yet? My F/1.4 is a dream in those situations, and wide apertures open a whole new world of photography.
    Thanks for sharing!
    Randy

  4. raymond marlow

    Calipader,
    I love the website you have set up here, really lets my mind wander and imagine hitting some of these lakes and sites. I personally hope to get to the point you are at hitting deep country lakes and longer hikes. This May me and my friend hope to do some special hikes to some special lakes for photography in Yosemite. Can you suggest to me some amazing lakes I should be photographing in the Eastern Sierras, such as precipice point or a few other lakes I noticed with an amazing reflection. I’ve done most of the easier hikes in the high country and valley area now its time to branch out. Im looking for great colors in the water, foregrounds that work for the images and backgrounds that set the lake apart, High sierras near yosemite will work,it certainly dosent need to be directly in the park itself. I hope you can help me out with your hiking experience. Some of my images are on the Website enclosed but many more for Yosemite are on pbase.com/raymarlow under yosemite. thanks for sharing and I hope to hear from you with the hopes of some great lakes to hike into this may. thanks so much
    Raymond Marlow

  5. John Soares

    Beautiful pics. I especially love Mobius Arch. Gotta get back to the eastern Sierra, an area I’ve spent too little time exploring.

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