Rock Creek snowshoe hike and petroglyphs at sunset

After breakfast and grabbing a coffee at the Alabama Hills café, we stopped by the White Mountain Ranger Station in Bishop to get an idea of the road condition up towards the Bristlecone Pines where we wanted to do some snowshoeing. It’s a good thing we did. While there is a gate that closes the road for the winter, the road is effectively closed by snow a few miles before the gate and getting to the Bristlecone Pines was impossible, at least for us. So Rock Creek became our objective.

Clouds were building over the Sierras, and by the time we got to the snow park on Rock Creek it was windy and snowing. Never having snowshoed before we were a little clumsy getting our gear on, and the snow and cold wind just made it worse. Fortunately, once we got going we were dressed warm enough.

We chose a blue diamond (intermediate) trail on the east side of the creek that I think was the prettiest. The other choice was to follow the road on the west side of the creek. The trail hadn’t seen much use since the most recent snow, so I was often blazing our own track. I found it tough going in the areas where the snow was powdery. We made it almost 2 miles up the trail before we decided to turn around, although going back downhill and stepping in the tracks we had made was definitely easier. We met a cross-country skier who asked if we had made it to the lodge. I didn’t realize there was a lodge, and when we told him our mileage, he said we must have been within a couple of hundred yards of it. On the way back it stopped snowing and we had some sunshine and blue sky. I didn’t take a camera on this hike.

Returning to Bishop, we again stopped at the Ranger Station and asked about petroglyphs. With a map in hand, we headed north on Fish Slough Road to the first of three petroglyph areas. Sundown was approaching, so after checking out the petroglyphs, I hauled the tripod up on top of a slight rise and tried to get some sunset photos. The clouds really didn’t cooperate.

Sunset over the Sierras



Links
Fish Slough Road sunset photo gallery
Everytrail GPS track for Rock Creek snowshoe hike

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