Bristlecone pines, Silver Canyon Road, Dale's Camp

We got a relatively early start today and drove south along 395, then up a side road to the Ancient Bristlecone Forest, which is a very pretty but LONG (~45 minutes) drive from Bishop. We started off on the Methuselah Trail, but ended up getting a little tired out. I was taking pictures, Chloe was the Zoe Sherpa, and soon we were both winded from the walk up the hill.




After about a mile, we decided to opt out of the four mile loop in favor of saving some energy for bouldering later in the day, and took the cutoff for the shorter 3 mile loop which crests the ~10400 ft

sub peak and then descends past the old mining camp.



When I was looking for directions to the visitor center, I noticed that there was another road up to the ridge: Silver Canyon Road. My five minute google search that morning had suggested that it was a very pretty drive, albeit on high clearance 4WD roads. Since I wasn't looking forward to a 6000 ft ascent on potentially horrible roads, we took the paved route up to the top. After the hike however, Chloe somewhat begrudgingly agreed to try Silver Canyon on the descent.
Here was our first look:

No problem right? Well looks can be deceiving: it wasn't *horrible* on descent, but driving up it looks like a scree/washed out/steep as hell horror show, and I would definitely not attempt it on anything without a low range, let alone our manual subie. After arriving at the end of the steep part, peeling my fingers off of the steering wheel and giving the brakes a chance to cool down, we coasted along the by now quite mellow road. The only complication was a series of increasingly deeper creek/river fordings. Here's the rogues gallery:




The first several were not deep at all, and I had stopped slowing down for them. Unfortunately, the last one was pretty deep, and I ended up getting just a wee bow wave of water over the hood of the car

I think some of this might have made it through the air filter, because the engine hiccuped a bit later that day and the dreaded Check Engine light came on. Happily, after some spirited high RPM driving up to the Buttermilks, the engine light extinguished, the motor was running smoothly, and all was well in the world.
But back to Silver Canyon Road:
Around one bend we came across a herd of what look like Desert Bighorn Sheep:



The drive down the lower part of the Canyon is stunning, and I wouldn't hesitate to drive up from the valley again. It's definitely worth getting out of the car to check the water depth though!

After a quick lunch at Schatt's where Zoe ate the contents of almost an entire half of my roast beef sandwich, we drove up to the Buttermilks to try out a new area: Dale's Camp. For a location within sight of the Peabody boulders, it's surprisingly lush, with a fish filled babbling brook that you need to get across (this time not with the car) and lots of pine (?) trees. We both lurched up the V1 on the heart prow boulder, and after a lot of cursing, I made it up the V2 to the left. That top out is brutal! Since we no longer are able to spot each other (non climbing spouse = Zoe caretaker), I took a nasty fall, bouncing off the pad onto my back, then skidding down the exfoliated granite crystals. The outcome? Let's just say "exfoliated" is the key word here. In between burns, we fed and entertained Zoe on the crash pad

We finished up by sending "Cuban Roll"... a sweet problem in the Zeppelin area


And then down to Las Palmas for carne and beers