More beautiful places...

We have continued
our treks up into the mountains, and just came back from an exploration of Onion Valley, which is out of a tiny town called Independence, 12 miles south of us.  Canyon hikes usually involve a short drive to the trailhead, but the canyon road out of Independence is most exciting.  It gets steeper and steeper, switching back and forth across a sharply angled face.  When we drove in we saw a sign indicating that the road was closed, but there was no locked gate preventing passage.  So we drove on up.  As we crept up the switchbacks, we began to see more and more rock fall on the road.  It became obvious that the closed sign meant that there was no maintenance of the road surface until the spring thaw.  But we kept driving up, and enjoyed spectacular views of the Sierra Nevada range.  Then we made a tight turn and ran into a morass of boulders, too big to move.  That was the extent of our exploration for the day, but Onion Valley is at the top of the list for spring, when they clear the road.  C

It’s starting to look like spring here.  Many of the ‘stick trees’ that I’ve been trying to identify are sprouting their new leaves.  Flowering trees like this cherry(?) tree in our yard are blooming around town.  The robins and bluebirds are already abundant. 

Our emphasis lately has been on exploring the canyon right up our street - Big Pine.  Bought a topo map and we’re learning to use it.  I dug out a cool mileage calculating wheel that Uncle Joe had for many years.  I remember using it to do some project for him as a teenager.  I also have a 'tracker' app on my smart phone that give us lots of stats (& prevents getting lost!). The bench area between the flat valley and the high mountains is full of 4WD roads (too many) and trails with lots of old mining stuff (at least on the map).  We’re checking it all out.  Would be great mountain biking also.  The terrain is sage and other low bushes.  Sophie caught sight of a jack rabbit and took off in pursuit.  It’s so funny watching the chase … the rabbit is as big as Sophie and I don’t think she will ever catch one.  Maybe we’ll put her on leash and see how that goes.  Buddy stays close to the trail.  As the weather warms more there might be rattle snakes to consider.
     The area Chuck uses for bouldering is where we park for this hiking.  I pedaled my road bike up that way a couple of days ago.  The paved part went well, but pretty tough on the dirt road.  Coming down was iffy.  I think I’m justifying a new mountain bike! 

We hiked a 4 mile loop up Big Pine Canyon this morning.  It included some very steep uphill.  Near the top of a ridge we started seeing dozens of sets of ears on the horizon.  We put Sophie on leash so she wouldn’t scare them off and got to watch a couple of herds of totaling about 40 deer trek all over the hills.  Very tiring but fun hike with great views of the Owens Valley, White Mountains & Big Pine.  Watched a pair of hawks circling then an eagle soared with them briefly before passing on through.