Mammoth Lakes and Independence
Posted by Karen on 25-Aug-2007
(Click on photo for all 119 photos)
I’ll be meeting up with Paige way later tonight, so I have a whole day to spend exploring the area and decide to look for a few geocaches because they can take you to interesting spots you might not otherwise see. Traveling down the Old Mammoth Road, I searched for a found a geocache that took me to the Historic Knight Wheel. Continuing down the road, the next geocache would have taken me to old stamp mill, just a short hike off the road. I found the parking spot next to two old grave sites and started the short hike and was doing good until I had to cross a creek… oh no no no… can’t get the cast wet, so I turned around and went back. The road led me to the several beautiful lakes and I now understand why the town is called Mammoth Lakes. The first lake I stopped at was Horseshoe Lake, where a geological anomaly has caused carbon dioxide to seep into the ground and kill all the trees and plant life within a certain area next to the lake–it was very eerie looking. Lake Mamie, Lake George and Twin Lakes were the next lakes I checked out. They are all very beautiful lakes with lots of trout fishermen going for it on every lake edge. At Twin Lakes, there is an outdoor chapel, with log pews and a podium, and there was a wedding being set up, so I enjoyed music while I searched for the nearby geocache. Time to head up the road towards Lone Pine to meet up later with Paige. Along the way I check out a few historical markers in Bishop and unfortunately the Laws Museum was closed, but it looked interesting and I’ll have to go back another time. In the waning hour of sunlight, I tour Manzanar National Historic Site. The Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten internment camps where anyone of Japanese descent, citizen or not, were detained in 1942 after Pearl Harbor was bombed. While I love the eastern Sierra landscape, I can’t imagine being forced to leave my home and having to live in military style barracks out in this desolate area as they were forced to do. I’m glad to see they have built an interpretive center here and that efforts are being made to remember and preserve this sad portion of our history. We must never forget, least we don’t repeat the same tragedies.
