Reconnaissance, Not A Vacation

After close to three months of being locked in the house, except for my daily walks, and living through the most serious pandemic in a hundred years, along with a simultaneous cultural meltdown, I decided I needed to take a short break in early June, to remind myself that a world beyond people still existed. I wanted to see some ghost towns, go hiking, photograph the Great Basin/Sierra Nevada interface, and see how COVID-19 had impacted nonurban areas. I hoped for a somewhat distorted vacation, but actually landed up having more of a reconnaissance of a world just starting to awkwardly come back to life. Initially the plan was for six or seven days on the road, but after just three days, I decided to go home.
As much as possible, I had done my web research, made phone calls to the appropriate agencies, and asked people who had been to the east slope recently what to expect. People did not answer the phone, conflicting info came back from numerous sources, and the websites were less than forthcoming about road access, and campground status. It was one of those "hope for the best, and prepare for the worst" situations. So, I packed up the car, and figured I would deal with things as they arose, until my intuition told me it was time to go home, probably early.

The general route I had planned on was Route 88 across the Sierras to Minden, NV, then north through Reno to the Black Rock Desert for a day or two, then south on Route 95 through western Nevada, finally reentering California near Big Pine, south of Bishop. From there I would figure it out, but I really wanted to hike up the south fork of Big Pine Creek in the Palisades, and also see the Bristlecone Pines in the White Mountains, before deciding to either head north or south along the Eastern Sierra Nevada. The idea of taking Route 88, Carson Pass, was to avoid the traffic and crowds to the north at South Lake Tahoe. As it turned out, every National Forest Service (NFS) campground along Route 88 was closed, so I headed north of Lake Tahoe towards Sierraville, before actually finding an actual open campground. I got into camp close to dark, ate some crackers and salami, and went to sleep. It was the most beautiful clear still evening I had seen in months.

The following morning, I got up close to dawn, made some coffee, and took off quickly on backroads towards Reno and the Black Rock Desert. The valley east of Sierraville was as clear as one can imagine, with a thin layer of low fog across the whole valley. Once I got to Reno, I headed east on Interstate 80, intending to head north to Nixon and onto Gerlach, NV. Not happening, two miles off I-80, a blinking road sign says, "Road is closed except for local traffic beyond Nixon." To get to the Black Rock Desert one has to pass through tribal lands, and the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe had closed all roads across their reservation due to COVID-19 concerns. Under the circumstances an intelligent idea for sure, especially as Native American communities have been suffering from elevated levels of the virus, but it would have been nice if the Reno area tourism website had noted this situation... And for the rest of my trip in western Nevada, any and all access across tribal lands was prohibited.

So, I decided to follow my route south on Route 95 towards Tonopah going through a number of ghost towns, and Sierra rivers dying out in the desert. Pretty much from Fallon onward, for the next two days, I had the most beautiful soft light you can imagine all day. As I was to find out, the Sierras were blanketed by a late season storm, and the desert light was very soft even in the middle of the day due to cloud cover. I was able to shoot at will, which is very unusual in the desert. I did three days' worth of shooting in an afternoon before the next problem arose around 3PM.
South of an old ghost town named Mina, Route 95 abruptly stopped for unexplained construction, taking me even thirty miles further west of Tonopah on a detour. This was sort of an early crux point in the trip that in hindsight was the actual deal breaker. It was either do the roundabout route to Tonopah to photograph the infamous Clown Motel, and then on to the Bristlecone Pines, or bail on Tonopah and head towards Bishop, CA which was about an hour away, and figure it out from there. I decided on the latter, as I was tired from driving since 5:30AM, figuring I could go up to the bristlecone pines the following day from the California side.
Once in Bishop though, it quickly became clear, nothing was clear... The Inyo National Forest Ranger Station was not open, and the entry door was papered over with information concerning backcountry permits, but no information whatsoever about campground status up Bishop Creek. Accordingly, I drove up Bishop Creek to see what was up with campgrounds, only to find not one of the campgrounds was open yet, and threats of a $10,000 fine posted on the entry gate of every campground. So, I decided to drive north as I was familiar with that area, and had a few stealth campsites in mind for early morning photography. The situation from north of Bishop all the way up to the east entrance of Yosemite was the same; closed and that same threatening fine notice. I went to Mono Lake for sunset, and then went to my campsite many miles east had some salami and crackers, once again, and then passed out.

At 3AM, winds in excess of 50MPH started to descend from the Sierras eastward and awakened me. So much for sleep, so I set up to shoot predawn on the south side of Mono Lake, then at dawn went to the north side of the lake to photograph the snowstorm blanketing the Sierras, and finally drove up to Tioga Pass, at the closed east entrance to Yosemite National Park, to photograph the Kuna Crest, and Lee Vining Creek.
I finally ended up driving back to Lee Vining to get breakfast about 11AM. While I was having my bacon and eggs, it started to dawn on me that any photography and hiking I wanted to do in this area was completed, and I should at least begin to consider possibly bagging the trip early. I decided to go bouldering out near Benton, east of Mono Lake for the afternoon, and decide what to do about 5PM.
I kind of tied things off out by Benton about 4PM, and decided to try and find a motel room with the idea of hiking in the Sawtooth Ridge the following day before going home. However, that became a problem also, so I threw in the towel, and took a slow sloppy drive home from Sonora Pass, getting in close to midnight. Sometimes the road just beats you up...

So, the question does arise, how does one travel during a plague, and what should your expectations be this summer, and possibly for another couple of years? Concisely, I would say be flexible, be prepared for almost anything, and be practical. Concerning this present summer, the easiest ways to travel will be in an RV, backpacking, or book your motels weeks in advance. You want to know your lodging is covered in advance, and also what your parameters are around food. Please note in the towns along the Eastern Sierra most people were neither wearing masks or social distancing at restaurants and coffee shops.
Concerning campgrounds; who knows when they will open?, who knows how easy it will be to decipher the postings on the NFS/NPS websites?, and people are pretty strange out there right now. There is a lot of unacknowledged anxiety out there on vacation, and it will probably be a big roll of the dice how your next door neighbor in a campground behaves after one too many beers during a pandemic... Have fun, but be safe!