September 22 2016 Around Lake Crowley

Today we had a chance to do some aimless exploring or exploring without any clear destination. We started out the drive with a cruise up McGee Creek. We went up this same road yesterday but the weather was pretty foul so some of the mountaintops were obscured and the wind was moving at about 40. Yesterday we observed massive sections of gray rock that make up the eastern slope of this section of the Sierra Range. Today, though, the weather was crystal-clear but the wind was still pretty stiff.
There is only a sign indicating the way to turn off US-395 to access McGee Creek Road. There is no sign saying “Gorgeous Valley – that way” and there should be. Traveling up the initial, steep, paved section of the road offers great views of Lake Crowley in the valley floor and another range of the Sierras as the backdrop. As the road flattens out near the portal to the giant rock mountains, there is a Forest Service campground with great views. With a Federal access pass, it costs $10.50 to occupy a spot overnight. The road continues on to an equestrian trailhead but the scenery alongside is gorgeous and stopping to look becomes almost constant. The views from this skinny little road as it follows the creek are spectacular; the surrounding mountains jut up some 4000 feet and being a human makes one feel insignificant next to the terrain.
We eventually exited McGee Creek and took another spin to nearby Convict Lake. The lake was named for 3 bad guys who escaped from jail in Carson City and were cornered here by a posse. One convict was returned to jail but the other two were hanged in the nearby community of Bishop. The lake is quite beautiful and fills a canyon between some more majestic bluffs on the sides of the dark blue water. We were here taking pictures yesterday but the place looked very different in today’s brilliant sunshine.
From Convict Lake we drove a bit up US-395 to a road leading east through a geothermal area. We soon found a place where folks enjoy the benefits of having a thermal geyser erupting in the middle of a stream of freezing cold glacial meltwater. Near the geyser, the mixed water is hot, further away somewhat cooler. The water has turned the area near the stream white but the pools of hot water are light blue.
Soon we returned to 395, drove a few miles south and exited onto Benton Crossing Road which runs mostly east around the north end of Lake Crowley, a big body of water filling the bottom of the Owens River Valley. We continued eastbound until crossing the Owens River right about where it enters Lake Crowley. We continued on the paved road down the east side of Lake Crowley and eventually turned east on Chidago Canyon Road, a gravel road with some washboard sections, narrow passages, steep climbs and descents and no cell phone service.
This is where the road got interesting. After considerable slow-motion driving, we entered Red Canyon, a section of rock formations unlike any we have seen before. There is a designation on our California Gazetteer map that says there are petroglyphs here but we did not see any of those. Instead, the road snaked through some very tight passages between pink rocks that have eroded in some unexplainable ways resulting in amazing shapes, holes and gouges. Our truck is about 20 feet long so we traveled very slowly through this amazing maze to make sure we were not scraping the paint off the door panels.
After many bumps and even more gorgeous views, we finally emerged onto US-6 which took us south to Bishop. A diesel stop and a tobacco stop at an Indian Casino and we were on our way back north on 395 and the McGee Creek RV Park. We leave this area tomorrow and we are both regretting it. We will have to see all the other gorgeous stuff around here on our next pass.
We got a few pictures along today’s sort of aimless excursion. To see some of them, click here

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