Day Two and Three of the Road trip
On December 26th, I was ready to head back. The driving had already been pretty brutal, I was a wreck, and I knew that there were even bigger hills waiting for us near Mammoth. I also knew that I would be the one driving. However, the Frenchies convinced me otherwise, and in hindsight I'm glad they did. The first thing we did that day was buy another set of chains (thats set #3 for the less astute readers). Right out of town, the chains went on again, and we inched our way south on frozen roads. Despite the stress and difficult driving, it was a glorious day. 395 goes through the kind of stark and mournful high desert scenery that I love and dearly miss sometimes. The chains were put on and off several more times before noon by my chain crew (who were without a doubt the most proficient french chain installers in CA by now).
chains being put on by Tam south of Topaz Lake
We passed Topaz Lake, and came into some rolling hills, where the road became quite narrow, and was, as usual, upwards sloping and absolutely frozen solid. There was also a river with ice coating its banks to the right of the road. As we turned a bend in the road, we came upon a car upside down in the river, with people clambering up the banks. A few other cars had already stopped to help the people out, so we did as well. We asked if everything was okay, which it miraculously was, and ambulances and cops were supposedly en route. At this point we did NOT have our chains on, so we decided to put them on immediately. Unfortunately, a CHP dickhead started yelling at us to "Get the fuck off the road", so we cautiously edged up the hill to a bigger turnout to put the chains on.
This went on for many hours. If you've driven on 395, I think you might understand what its like never being able to go faster than 25 mph... and on ice: misery. For those that don't, it's around 140 miles (160 to bishop, but the last 20 descend into the valley and were snowless...). There were several almost-spinouts into oncoming traffic, but we eventually made it to Bishop unharmed, but tired. We got in around 3 or 4 pm, grabbed some crappy food, and headed up to the Happy blocs. On the way, a cop pulled us over (don't know why!), and had his hand on his gun as he walked up to the car. I freaked out a little and berated the frenchies for not wearing their seatbelts. My answer to the cop's question about whether I had anything in my truck "that I shouldnt have", was a sad "no.". The remaining 2 miles to the happies were uneventful.
I wanted to show Tam problems that I knew were good, which I had done before like Rio's (below), but we did a few things that I hadn't gotten to do last time, like serengeti and savannah... We didn't end up being able to get on Rio's because a group (surprise!) of Japanese guys were monopolizing it. As it got dark, we decided to get to the Pit and set our stuff up. When the sun went behind the sierra
it got really, really bone chillingly cold and windy. I think it ended up getting to ~5-10° F without the wind chill that night. I know I'm not exactly a mountain man, but Tam has a lot of mountaineering experience, and even he thought it was painfully cold.
Tam and Luc had brought food and camp stoves. Therefore, in our frozen state, a hot meal was eagerly looked forward to by all. As a result, the malfuntioning of the propane stove was met with extreme displeasure and disappointment. Despite the wind, we had managed to light the small packet of wood that we had bought in town, so we attempted to heat the soup in the fire. After thoroughly blackening Tams cookware, the soup was still tepid, so we gave up and ate it, and quickly got set up to sleep. I gave Tam and Luc my tent, and slept in the shell of the truck -- I think its a toss up which was colder, since there are big holes around the tail gate of the truck.
It was probably the coldest night I've ever experienced, and I would periodically wake up to pain in whatever parts of my face were exposed. The condensation in my breath would sometimes freeze into delicate little ice crystals, and float gently back down onto my face. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very much. In the morning, we were all a bit haggard, and I frankly told my french friends that I could not wait an hour in the cold while we tried in vain to heat up more tepid soup, and that we NEEDED to go into town for breakfast. it turned out that they were both d'accord (enthusiastic, even!) having spent an equally unpleasant night in the tent. As I pulled out of the campsite, I ran over Tams cookware, which had for some reason been put under the car for safekeeping. After a nice warm breakfast at Jacks in Bishop, we went back to the happies. We got on some fun stuff like my heart grew wings under the desert sky (pretty sure I have this name wrong), heavenly path (above) and Rio's (below), where we found a nest of discarded tape and butts from the japanese guys.
It was frantic but fun. People always complain about the gym or gumby vibe at the happy's, but even I can't be that cynical. Its a great place in beautiful surroundings.
We were there really early, and mistakenly passed by Atari, which was occupied the rest of the time we were there. At lunchtime, we headed up to the Buttermilks, which were covered in snow:
and got shut down on everything, but I got a little further on Saigon (not me in these pics):
We had to shoo away a teenage sprayer named Harry who kept suggesting that we try out the Mandala -- "Its so cool!". Little pisher.
At ironman (again, you are a cynic and a bastard if you yawn at or insult this problem) one of the guys gathered around it looked familiar, and it turned out to be Chris Sharma. It also turned out that hes not modest at all, but kept on saying "YOU SUCK, LOOK HOW GOOD I AM!" as he did iron fly with just his index finger. I hate that guy.
This was our parting view of the Sierra:
As we were getting in our car, we noticed a black honda accord spinning out (see pictures of the road above) and in trouble, so the french F1 chain crew put on their chains. We all agreed that we couldnt possibly endure another night of cold, so we decided to drive back to Berkeley that night. We also decided that the southern route, despite its length, was preferable, since it was snowless. The final excitement was when we skipped gas stations for a while, thinking that there would be many, and almost ran out of gas (meter on top of the E) before bakersfield.
