Sitting around the dinner table, as we usually do, my dad and I were discussing what trips we wanted to take this summer. We had never been to the Sierra’s together, besides Yosemite but I was too young to remember it to clearly. It was something that we talked about occasionally, but I was never old enough to go. I guess my dad decided I was finally ready to tackle the steep mountains and snow. So we started planning.
We left on Monday and drove three hours or so to Long Barn, a small town with the population of 155. We stayed in a lodge in town and drove one and a half hours to Sonora Pass and about three hours to Mono Lake and Bodie, a ghost down completely isolated from anywhere else.
We drove up Monday and unpacked our stuff and then drove up to Sonora Pass to check out the mountains and see what we were dealing with.
After our small, morning hike we got in the car and drove three hours to Mono Lake, we took a small hike to the lake and then sat down with our feet in the slimy water enjoying the sunshine and the sound of the water lapping against the rocks. We ate home made sandwiches by the water, and then packed up and hiked back to the car.
We headed off to Bodie, a ghost town located in the Eastern Sierra Nevada region of Mono County. It originally belonged to Northern Paiute and Mono Lake Paiute Indian groups. Of course, settlers did what they did best. They settled on Indian land and pushed them out of their home. The town soon became one of America’s richest gold strikes. Over 25 years the Bunker Hill Mine, later named Standard Mining Company, mined about 15 million dollars worth of gold oar.
The town was short-lived as it started to decline quickly due to a decrease on oar production. In five years the towns population decreased to just 1,500 people. Six years later, a disastrous fire wiped out most of the town. Only ten percent of the town was saved from the fire. But everyone left, turning it into a ghost town.
While we were wandering around the remaining buildings, it was crazy to see how people just got up and left. Clothes were still on hooks, beds were unmade and messy, like they were just slept in. Except for the layers of dust saying otherwise. Pots and pans were still on the stoves. But the amount of broken bottles and signs of distress on the ground disturbed me a little. It let my mind wander on to what could have possibly happened. The rush to leave was so great, you couldn’t even get some of your most important valuables.
After a long drive back to Long Barn, about three and a half hours. Maybe longer because the three miles of treacherous dirt road that seemed to take hours to drive across, slowed us down. We stopped on the side of the road to walk around in the river and snow.
Here’s just some random pictures taken on the trip.