Up on Copper Mountain
Karen and I hit the road awfully early this morning to meet the GBA 4×4 group at Virginia Lakes Lodge before 9AM. We got just a bit of a late start, and needed a coffee/pit stop break in Sonora, so we didn’t quite make it on time. Luckily, just as we turned to go down the road to the lodge, we met the group as they were leaving. While we were wishing for coffee and a scone, we wheeled around and joined the caravan.
Our first destination was off of Virginia Lakes road up toward Copper Mountain. First up was Mono Lake Overlook (D1.5 T2.5), followed by Copper Mountain Cache (D1 T4.5).
Snowslide 1911 cemetery
Then it was down to 395 for Mono Vista (a drive up at a viewpoint) and then off road a bit to get Ben’s Snowslide 1911 (D1.5 T2.5).
Where is it?
We next headed to Black Point overlooking Mono Lake on the north side. The access is through cinders and sand and is only challenging at one point—a short, steep section filled with moguls. Everybody made it but me, but in retrospect I think it was mostly driver error. I took a really bad line. But instead of possibly wasting more of the group’s time, we just hitched a ride with Ben for the rest of the way (about 3/4 mile).
At the end of the road it was a fairly short hike to A Claustrophobic’s Nightmare/Just Say NO to Crack (D5 T5). It certainly was difficult enough. Several of us were stretched out reaching as deep as we could into little cracks and peering under rocks with flashlights. After a while, Ben (who had been here on successful finds about 3 times) started looking. We were skunked. On the theory that perhaps it had fallen into unreachable depths (certainly a possibility), we put in a replacement. Ben was going to follow up with the owner to see if he would agree to the replacement.
After a long time in the cool shadows of this crack, we trekked over to Plumber’s Crack (D3 T5), which turned out to be much easier to find.
On leaving Black Point, we drove by the Mono Cemetery and did the Mono’s Pioneers virtual.
Whoa Nellie fish tacos
Time for lunch! Let’s go to Whoa Nellies for a killer fish taco lunch. What a busy place, and while we were sitting outside eating a short micro-burst of wind hit and smashed three of the umbrella shades. Luckily, no one was hit; they were hefty wooden frame umbrellas. While some of the crew were finishing up and others were getting gas, I drove up to a viewpoint and scored on What a View.
Rescuing the Jeep from sliding down hill
For the rest of the afternoon we headed off toward Mammoth for a couple more off-road adventures. Just south of the Mammoth Scenic Loop road we hit dirt on the west side of 395, heading up to Crash of the Golgafrinchan“B” Ark:Fintlewoodlewix (D3 T5).On leaving this cache, Ben led us onto a dead end road and ended up getting a rear wheel sliding off in the soft stuff on the downhill side. Between Brad’s winch and 5 of us on a strap to try to keep the rear end from sliding any farther down, we got him out.
Then it was on to Young Zaphod Plays It Safe (D3 T5). There were a couple of rough spots in the road, but the worst was the overhanging brush. Got some good pinstripes out of it.
We connected up with Sawmill Road and rolled down into Mammoth, stopping for Peach and Kika’s Cache.
Bear!
Back out of town on the Scenic Loop and then off road to The Secret Dirty Golfball Graveyard in the Sky (D3.5 T4.5). We all piled out of our vehicles and headed for the cache in kind of a spread out group. I heard a loud snap of brush off to my left a bit and thought one of the others was up there when Karen yelled, “There’s a bear!” That froze us all in our tracks. Sure enough, and it was a big bear, and it didn’t run off. A couple of us took a few steps towards it, and it responded by walking closer to us, so we decided that was a bad idea, and backed off. It was a stand-off. We watched the bear and it watched us. Finally, a few of us looped around and down to the cache while others kept watch on the bear. We got the cache, and the bear didn’t get any of us. Last we saw of it, it was still standing cache watch.
We zoomed off to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (D4.5 T4.5), hoping the bear wouldn’t cover the 1/4 mile or so after us. Nevertheless, our situational awareness was still high.
Caching concluded, we checked in to the Econolodge, ate dinner across the street, and crashed. It has been a very long day.
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