Because the UC Barcroft Lab near White Mountain is opening the gate on Sunday (shortening the hike to the summit by 4 miles round-trip), we decided to brave the holiday crowds and traffic and spend the weekend in Bishop.
This little locomotive has seen better days.
Instead of following our normal route on highway 120 into Yosemite and over Tioga Pass, we stayed on highway 49 at the base of Priest Grade and went to Coulterville, which is in Mariposa County. It turns out I have never logged a cache in Mariposa County. There is an easy cache at this old mining locomotive. We also tried a multi-cache (because it was in an old cemetery), but it proved too time consuming hunting for the intermediate way-points.
Bennettville, near Tioga Pass
Just over Tioga Pass we parked at the turnoff to Saddlebag Lake and hiked up to Bennettville, an old mining town that still has a couple of buildings being kept in a state of arrested decay. The geocache here was easy to find, and the location was pretty. We continued on up the creek to a pretty little lake. This area deserves another visit and a longer hike up the creek to more lakes.
We stopped at Whoa Nellie Deli for a late lunch/early dinner and shared a plate of fish tacos, which didn’t strike our fancy as well as it has in the past. Then, after checking in to our motel in Bishop, we had a nice dinner at Amigos.
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