|
| | | Fall Colors Tour - Three Forks of Bishop Creek, CA | | | |
|
|
Fall Colors Tour - Three Forks of Bishop Creek, CA
| | |
| |
|
| Scenic Drive | |
|
| | Scenic Drive | | | | |
| | | |
| |
| Linked |
|
none
[ show ]
| no linked trail guides |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | I recently returned from a 12-day (Oct 3-15) car-camping and hiking trip to the Eastern Sierras. Fortunately it was at the peak of the Fall colors. This triplog is for a driving tour of one of the many prime areas for Fall colors reached by driving West from Bishop, CA, on SR168. This area encompasses the 3 canyons from which the North, Middle and South Forks of Bishop Creek converge into one canyon. At the ends of the roads going up each of these canyons are lakes: North Lake, Sabrina Lake, and South Lake, respectively. Trailheads for major trails are at the ends of these roads and provide access into some of the most beautiful areas of the Sierras. I usually set up a base camp in one of the campgrounds and then drive from there to whichever trail I’ve chosen to hike on a given day. On this trip it was the small tents only Willows Campground a couple miles down the road from South Lake.
The first day after arriving at Willows Campground I decided to do this driving tour of the three canyons to check out the Fall colors. Most of the pictures I posted here were taken on that tour. It seems many people had the same idea. I’ve never seen so many people, some in tour groups, clustering on the shoulder of the road waiting to take photos. Despite the crowds, I got some decent photos and by late morning I had visited all three canyons. I started back to my camp taking a 10-mile side trip down SR168 to find cell service and then stopped to check out the combination store, restaurant and bar at the Bishop Creek Lodge just a couple miles from camp. The woman bar tender talked me into a big mug of ice-cold beer. That led to friendly conversation with others who wandered in, so I didn’t get to my campsite until a couple hours later.
As I was pulling into my campsite late that afternoon, I was surprised to see two people sitting on chairs silently meditating, one 20 feet behind the other, in the Aspen Grove on the back side of my campsite. I recognized them as a young woman and older man I had seen earlier in the day at North Lake. After some conversation with the woman, it was revealed that she also knew about the elk I had encountered in the flock of sheep at Lower Summers Meadow. She asked if I had posted the photo on the internet. [ photo ] (no, I hadn’t, yet.) I then proceeded to start setting up camp and she returned to sitting as before for about another 20 minutes before they both got in their car and left. Now this might not seem all that strange, but over the next 3 days other random folks would show up at my campsite for photo shoots. Two guys showed up 2 days in a row with expensive camera equipment and spent an hour each time taking photos. A young man and a beautiful Asian woman showed up in an expensive Porshe sports car and started a photo shoot of her in every conceivable location in the Aspens around my campsite, like it was for a fashion magazine. She was wearing a long Japanese style pure white dress with large red and yellow polka dots. I often meet some of the most unusual people on these trips to the Eastern Sierras. When I told this to a California friend, she said “What did you expect, dude, you were in California!” |
| _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
Route Editor
Route Scout
