Bishop

Bishop is an old ranching town and the biggest settlement in the Owens River Valley. It is located in the fertile north end of Valley, though the Owens River, Highway 395, and Los Angeles aqueduct continue north from here towards Mono Lake. Just north of town, Highway 6 begins, a two lane blacktop route that heads 3,200 miles east to Cape Cod. Attractions in Bishop include Erick Schat’s Bakkery in Bishop is a major attraction, their Sheepherder bread famous throughout California. Major entrepreneurs in Bishop, the Schat family is also undertaking an effort to be a provider of Internet services for Bishop. KAVA is the only Lithuanian coffeehouse and cybercafe in the Owens Valley. The Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Indian Cultural Center displays exhibits on the lives of the Valley’s original peoples.

Coyote Flat Airstrip

At 9988’ above sea level, Coyote Flat was the highest airfield in North America until its recent decomissioning and is one of the few military installations to have been based in the Owens Valley and immediate surroundings. In the 1960s, the Air Force Flight Center, Edwards Air Force base (AFFTC) took over 642 acres of Coyote Flat as a test site. The official explanation is that the Department of Defense used the landing strip to test the high altitude performance of helicopters and airplanes. More conspiracy minded individuals point out that AFFTC also ran Area 51 and that the inaccessibility of Coyote Flat kept operations far from prying eyes. In the last few years, control of the area was ceded back to the Forest Service which removed the three buildings, dug up the pavement, and surrounded the site with barbed wire in order to return the site to its natural condition. The Forest Service insists that the large “X” is meant to discourage landings. Even so, backcountry flying enthusiasts have found it possible to land on the airstrip without undo trouble.

Lake Sabrina, South Lake, and Bishop Creek Canyon Power Plants

Route 168 West out of Bishop is a long, steep road to the Sierras. Hundreds of lakes dot the alpine landscape, providing fishermen with stellar places to stop. With Bishop Creek falling 5,500 in 15 miles, Southern California Edison Corporation harnesses the water to create power in a string of four powerhouses running down the mountain. Redwood dams on South Lake and Lake Sabrina store water for the LADWP and to provide year-round flow for the powerhouses. The pipes running down the mountain are there to increase the velocity of water, not to protect it in any way.

Laws Railroad Museum

Laws was the name of a stop on the old narrow-gauge railroad, and though the railroad is gone, the stop is now an 11 acre museum of railroad life. The rail line that once connected the Owens Valley to the world, the Carson and Colorado, was built in the 1880s, primarily to service the mines of the valley. It ran from Keeler to Carson City, Nevada where passengers and freight would transfer to trains bound for San Francisco. The Owens Valley line was abandoned by the 1960s, and the steel rails removed for scarp. The hamlet of Laws, named after Robert J. Laws, the engineer who supervised the line’s construction, was an interface between the railroad and the town of Bishop. After service to Carson City was discontinued, the railroad continued to serve Keeler with the “Slim Princess,” operated by the Southern Pacific Company until 1959. By this point, most of the buildings in Laws had fallen apart or had been torn down. Only the depot, agent’s house, turntable, and the oiland water tanks survived. Many of the historic looking buildings moved to the museum at Laws are old movie sets. Like much of the Valley, the museum is on land leased from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Owens Gorge Power Plants

The Owens River Gorge is a natural canyon carved by the river as it passed through the volcanic tablelands at the northern end of the Owens Valley. This landform, a giant, sloping volcanic scab, was formed on top of the existing valley floor 760,000 years ago by the eruption of the nearby Long Valley Caldera. The DWP has built three hydropower plants in the gorge, to take advantage of the 2,300 foot drop between Crowley Lake and the Owens River Valley. Between the plants, river water is diverted into pipelines in order to increase the velocity of the water flow, thereby increasing power.

On the west side of the road lies Round Valley, giving something of an impression of what the Owens Valley would have looked like in its agricultural heyday.

Pine Creek Tungsten Mine

Located high in the Sierras, this mine, formerly owned by Union Carbide, opened in 1916 and served as the largest tungsten producer in the United States. Tungsten’s durability, hardness, and resistance to corrosion allowed it to be used in high speed tools, light bulb filaments, armor plating for tanks, and armor-piercing bullets. The “Mine in the Sky” extended thousands of feet into the mountains. The mine is a victim of globalization: with tungsten mines in China producing the ore at less than half of what it cost to extract it here, the mine was no longer profitable and production ceased in April 2000. The mine is being considered as a potential site for earth science research in deep underground laboratories. The company town of Rowena, half way up the road to the mine, is an interesting relic.

Crowley Lake

Part of Long Valley was flooded by the city of Los Angeles in 1941 to form Crowley Lake, the largest reservoir of the LA Aqueduct system in Mono County. Paradoxically, Crowley Lake’s creation came about because in the water rich years of the 1930s, the DWP had to divert excess water back into the valley through the Alabama Gates, thereby flooding the mineral operations in Owens Lake. Crowley Lake now helps regulate the water supply by absorbing the excess water. The lake is named after Father John J. Crowley, “the desert Padre,” who was a key figure in Owens Valley history and a local hero. When it became obvious that the city of Los Angeles’s appropriation of the water supply had made agriculture impossible in the Owens Valley, many of the residents of the Valley lost all hope. Father Crowley traveled up and down the Valley, convincing many of them that it could become a tourist destination. Thus, it is fitting that while it exists to serve the Los Angeles aqueduct, Crowley Lake is also a prime destination for anglers. 30,000 fisherman gather on shore and in boats to mark the beginning of fishing season. Father Crowley was killed in 1940 in an automobile accident.

North of Bishop, the road climbs steeply toward Long Valley, a caldera formed by a gigantic volcanic eruption 760,000 years ago. Unlike typical volcanos, this was an example of an entire volcanic field coming to life simultaneously. Some 150 cubic miles of 1500?Ǭ?F pumice and ash were ejected from a series of vents throughout the area. Some of the molten Bishop tuff flowed southeast past Big Pine, forming the volcanic tablelands visible north of the town while some flowed over the Sierra Nevada into the drainage for the San Joaquin river while a sizeable fraction was ejected up to twenty-five miles in the air and carried as far away as eastern Nebraska and Kansas. With the eruption of the magma, the ground subsided, creating a two mile deep depression from Mammoth Mountain to the end of Crowley Lake that was in turn filled to about two-thirds full by falling tuff, a pinkish-red rock. The last eruption in Long Valley was in the Mono-Inyo Crater area about 500-600 yearsago.

S. N. A. R. L.

The Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL) has been operating at the base of the Sierras since 1973, managed by the University of California, Santa Barbara. The lab's 55 acre site on the west side of Highway 395 includes a system of nine artifical diversions of Convict Creek, used to study stream hydrology and ecology. Research at SNARL influenced the State Water Resource Control Board's 1994 decision to order Mono Lake's water level to be raised to restrict its ecosystem. In addition to the field lab here, SNARL has a snow lab on Mammoth Mountain and recently acquired the old High Sierra Presbyterian Church on Highway 395.

Mammoth Lakes Airport

The Mammoth Lakes Airport offers charter and commuter flights to Los Angeles and other California destinations. The airport features a seven thousand foot long runway and capacity for one hundred and fifteen aircraft. Airport management has recently begun a major expansion plan to lure in larger passenger aircraft and to provide a fly-in resort community.

Casa Diablo Hot Springs Geothermal Plant

The Casa Diablo Hot Springs Power Plant, east of Highway 395, is a geothermal electrical production complex, one of several in the state. Wells drilled into the ground inject water that is subsequently heated geothermally heated to 170 degrees C. Returning to the surface, the water drives three turbine driven power plants to generate some 40 megawatts of electricity for Mammoth Pacific, enough to power roughly 40,000 homes. Although geothermal energy is a relatively clean and efficient source of power, like all forms of energy, it has a dark side. The heat that produces the hot water comes from the magma chamber five miles underground that caused the Long Valley Caldera Eruption.

Hot Creek Fish Hatchery

This is the largest rainbow trout fish hatchery in California as well as a key way station for the raising of the Golden Trout, California’s state fish. The journey of the Golden Trout begins when employees of the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery hike into the wilderness to trap pregnant females. At the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery, the females lay their eggs. When the eggs reach a stage at which they have recognizable eyes, they are brought to the Hot Creek Fish Hatchery. After growing into three-inch fingerlings, the fish are loaded on board a tanker airplane that takes off from Mammoth Lakes Airport and dumps the fish into lakes in the Sierras. Prior to the stocking program, the natural range of the Golden Trout did not extend to these lakes. Built in 1936, Hot Creek Fish Hatchery is one of the largest such facilities in the Western states and is instrumental in supplying fertilized trout eggs to the region, state, country, and beyond. It also takes steps to ensure the survival of lesser known native species such as Kamloops rainbow troutk. Wires overhead protect the hatchlings from predatory birds.

Hot Creek Geothermal Area

Further out on the Fish Hatchery/Airport Road is Hot Creek Geothermal area. Bud Lite and bikinis offer a contemporary reprise of 1970s good-time California. One of the most spectacular hot springs in the country, the Hot Creek Hot Springs are revered by lovers of scaldingly warm water. As with so many aspects of the California casual lifestyle, enjoyment of the hot springs is tempered by their multiple dangers. Signs indicate that scalding water, spontaneous eruptions of gas and steam, arsenic releases, and unsafe footing have claimed fourteen lives over the last thirty years. A safer alternative are the hot tubs located in the area that have been carved out of the local rock or made out of cement by locals. On Benton Crossing Road, Whitmore Hot Springs is a large public swimming pool operated jointly by Mono County and the town of Mammoth Lakes.

Convict Lake

Convict Lake, a mile long glacial tarn (a bowl carved by the glaciers) at the foot of the Sierras lies two miles West of 395. A visit early in the morning is often rewarded by masses of fishermen maintaining a silent vigil over their fish. Given the cathedral-like presence of the mountains, they appear to be not sportsmen but religious pilgrims. Convict Lake is a popular site for weddings and the Restaurant at Convict Lake is considered one of the best in the valley.

Mammoth Mountain

The Mammoth Mountain Ski Area is the single largest alpine ski area in the country. The development of the mountain into a resort was started by Dave McCoy, a surveyor and hydrographer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power who, in 1953, was awarded a permit to operate a skiing site permanently on condition that he develop it. The first chair lift opened in 1955. Over 30,000 rooms are available and on holiday weekends every last room will sell out.

11,030 foot tall Mammoth Mountain marks the eastern end of a low passage in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Winter storms from the Pacific hit the mountain and precipitate on its slopes, giving it one of the most dependable and longlasting snowpacks in the continental United States. The unusual location of the mountain is related to its origin: unlike the Sierras, which were formed by tilted and uplifted ground, Mammoth Mountain is a rhyolite dome formed between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago as magma began to rise to the earth’s surface again under Long Valley Caldera.

Mammoth Mountain C02 Tree Kill Zone

Part of the Tamarack cross-country ski trail system near Horseshoe Lake has been closed because of high levels of carbon dioxide in the local atmosphere produced by constant outgassings from the mountain. A large number of trees have died. The danger to humans is greatest in the winter as the carbon dioxide collects underneath the snow surface. Places where the snowcap breaks such as at restrooms or in snow holes around trees are likely spots for the heavy gas to accumulate. The death of a cross-country skier in 1997 has been blamed on these emissions. The Horseshoe Lake tree kill area is around 170 acres in size and growing.

One of the most geologically active volcanoes in the United States, Mammoth Mountain releases some 1,300 tons of carbon dioxide a day. There is some controversy as to the significance of the emissions. Some geologists have argued that they are the result of a swarm of earthquakes in the late 1980s that indicated an uprising of magma underneath the mountain. Others maintain that the emissions come from a large reservoir of carbon dioxide that has been under the mountain for some time but has only recently been breached. Scientists do agree that the carbon dioxide emissions are unusual. Tree die-offs indicating the presence of large amounts of carbon dioxide have not taken place in the area for a few hundred years and 1,300 tons of carbon dioxide is a remarkably large amount. In comparison, Mount St.- Helens emits similar quantities during low-level eruptions. Solar-powered monitoring devices, such as this one, help government agencies better understand the evolving situation.

Mono Craters Tunnel, West Portal

The 11.3 mile long tunnel was bored through the hills known as the Mono Craters to extend the reach of the Los Angeles Aqueduct into the Mono Basin. Completed in 1940, the tunnel increased the capacity of the system by about 35%. This task was made exceedingly dangerous because Mono Craters are not only the youngest mountain range in North America, largely formed in the last 10,000 years, they are recently active volcanos. Work crews digging through the mountains encountered hot and cold groundwater, deadly carbon dioxide gas, and steam, costing nearly one life per mile. While the West Portal is accessible and contains the ruins of buildings used in the construction, the East Portal lies on private land and is off-limits to the public. Remains of one of the four camps occupied during the tunnel's construction are still visible at the west side of the Mono Tunnel. For five years this was a town for workers and their families, with a peak population of over 200 people and 26 buildings.

Lee Vining Intake

338 miles from Los Angeles, Lee Vining Creek is diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct system?䬺s
Lee Vining-Grant Lake conduit. This is the northernmost point in the system. As the DWP points
out, it is due east of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Mono Lake

Approximately 350 miles from Los Angeles, Mono Lake marks the last visible effects of the Los Angeles Aqueduct system. Although the saline lake is not itself used for drinking water, its feeder streams were largely diverted to the Los Angeles Aqueduct starting in 1941. Controversy about the draining of Mono Lake reached a fever pitch in the 1980s and 1990s and resulted in an agreement with the city of Los Angeles to begin letting water return to the lake, allowing it to rise somewhat.

High Sierra Shrimp Plant

The High Sierra Shrimp Plant harvests brine shrimp from Mono Lake for a use as tropical fish food. These aquatic crustaceans are not closely related to shrimp but are instead related to lobsters and sow bugs. The Mono Lake brine shrimp are found nowhere else in the world.

Mono Lake Committee

Located on the brief main drag of Lee Vining, the Mono Lake Committee Information Center and Bookstore is the local base for the organization that was formed in 1978 to protect and restore the Mono basin ecosystem. The organization has been largely successful in its efforts.

Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitors Center

Overlooking the treeless landscape of Mono Lake, the Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center opened in 1992 and is operated by the National Forest Service. It contains a variety of exhibits, an art gallery and photo gallery, a book store, and a room for screening the twenty-minute film Of Ice and Fire: A Portrait of the Mono Basin. Interpretive tours run by the center explore the basin. Operated by the National Forest Service, the Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center opened in 1992. It contains a variety of exhibits, an art gallery and photo gallery, a book store, and a room for screening the twenty-minute film Of Ice and Fire: A Portrait of the Mono Basin. Interpretive tours run by the center explore the basin.

Mono Lake County Park

A boardwalk trail from Mono Lake County Park allows visitors to access the North shore marsh and tufa area. Markings along the boardwalk demonstrate the previous extent of the lake as it shrank due to diversion of water to the L. A. aqueduct and also point to where water will rise again in the future with the restoration project. The spot is popular with birdwatchers.