This past weekend I got to tag along on a four day outing to the Eastern Sierra. This trip differed from my usual hiking adventures – it was with the Geocachers of the Bay Area 4×4 group and organized by bthomas, a cacher, hiker, and 4x4er.

The trip started off Thursday morning with Motorbug and Geobrowns. We cached our way through Oakdale and along highway 108, stopping to explore some backroads and an old railroad trestle. We also stopped at a virtual cache with an an incredible view overlooking northern Yosemite and the Marine training area. This even ended up being a big milestone day: the Geobrown’s Jeep turned over 100 miles, I found my 900th cache, and MotorBug celebrated his 10th anniversary of retirement.

After a night’s stay in Lee Vining we connected with bthomas’s group and headed into Virginia Lakes for breakfast on Friday morning. Of course we picked up a few caches along the way! In the words of Tom (or was it Jim?) – there’s nothing like a coffee and an open cache to make a perfect morning! After a great breakfast at the lodge by the lake, we started off towards Copper Mountain, the first real 4×4 run of the day. On the way there we ran into Cap’n Finder, and also picked up the last arriving vehicle on the radio. We all connected on Copper Mountain, where we were treated to incredible views of Mono Lake, Lundy Canyon, and of course, a geocache.

Our next stop took us to a small graveyard just off of 395 north of Lee Vining. The graves hold the victims of a 1911 avalanche that took out a power station for the town of Bodie. We then went up to a mine just beyond the graves. After this short outing, we headed across 395 to Black Crater. This is a geologic oddity, with small southwest style slot canyons running through it! Of course there was a cache for us to find in one of these cracks, along with a bumpy hill to challenge the trucks.

We stopped by the Whoa Nellie deli for a lunch of the best fish tacos ever, then hit the 4×4 trails in the volcanic terrain just north of Mammoth Lakes. The target of the afternoon was a few unusual caches along with some fun 4×4, but bthomas made things a bit exciting by nearly sliding down a hillside in his Jeep thanks to the slippery but deep pumice sand.

Pizza and beer greeted us in Mammoth Lakes on Friday night, but it was another early wakeup call on Saturday that sent us to bed at a reasonable time. Our Saturday morning run would take us up to Minaret Summit and up a ridge to absolutely breathtaking views of the Minarets and Banner and Ritter peaks. Having hiked around that area on both the High Passes Loop and the John Muir Trail, I knew the views that we were in for and was like a kid on Christmas morning that day!

Saturday’s second target was Laurel Lakes, a 4.5 mile 4×4 run up to over 10,000 feet just south of Mammoth Lakes. It took quite a while to get up there, with overheating, caches, other vehicles, and boulders to make things exciting. This was an incredibly beautiful place – everything I’ve come to expect at 10,000 feet in the Sierra! Just wish I had brought my fishing pole along. I’m sure those trout were hungry.

Our day was not even close to over yet! We met up with size14shoe and son in Laws, then headed in for the run up Silver Canyon to the bristlecones of the White Mountains. I’d heard stories of Silver Canyon and was interested in heading up there to see if it was passable in our Trailblazer or not, and if it saved any time in getting up to the high-elevation bristlecones. It was an adventurous drive – I think the TB could make it, but it wouldn’t be fun! And truthfully, though it looks much more direct on the map, it took an hour longer than taking the longer paved route around! It had some definite advantages though – like a cache, fun water crossings, and desert bighorn sheep!

After a visit to the Patriarch Grove of ancient bristlecones to pay our respect to the oldest living thing on the planet, we headed back to Bishop for dinner at Amigos (best mexican restaurant ever) and a few in-town night caches. Sunday was relatively low-key, with a few more Mammoth area caches, more fish tacos (and chocolate cake) at Whoa Nellie, then escorting the sick bthomas cachemobile across Yosemite. Our final cache of the trip was on the West side of Yosemite down an old cave dug to drain water from a mine. This one had been on my radar for a while and it was a lot of fun and a great ending to a great weekend.

This entire trip was a perfect example of why I love caching. It took me to new places like the volcanic lands around Mammoth and Laurel Lakes, let me hang out with awesome people of all different ages, skills, and backgrounds, and introduced me to interesting and historical locations like the Black Crater cracks and the avalanche victim graveyard that I’ve driven by hundreds of times without noticing. To be completely honest, I’ve looked down on ‘mechanized’ travel into the backcountry, thinking it’s somehow cheating or disrespectful. My own 4×4 has always been a means to an end – just to get me to trails I might not be able to reach in a sedan. But this trip was anything but that. It just taught me there is a different way to see it and appreciate it. It’s a lot more about mindset than it is means of travel. Thanks so much to bthomas for organizing this great trip!

Eastern Sierra GBA 4x4 Trip #1 (07.31-08.03.2008)

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