RETIREMENT TRIP #6

          ARRESTED DECAY         

                   September 2015              

Based in Lee Vining for a couple days, we set out bright and early for Lundy Lake, a resort retreat, and Bodie, a preserved mining town.

Lundy Lake is a popular recreation area for camping and boating.  The lake, at the base of Conway Summit over 12,000 feet, lies at the end of a serene canyon.  Water level seemed extremely low, probably 45 percent of what it should be, but it’s also the end of a dry summer.  Driving back out, we could see that the water level was almost below the outflow pipe.

Nestled at the foot of the mountains, each one of the Virginia
Lakes has its own character.

“That’s one of the major feeds into Mono Lake,” said Andy.  “It also waters all the trees in this canyon and keeps them alive.”

I wondered what effect Los Angeles was still having on this tributary into Mono Lake.

“I’m going to head into Virginia Lakes before we go on to Bodie,” said Andy. “”We’ll be really high in there, but it’s early.”

The road into Virginia Lakes was paved and the color, much more striking than that at lower elevations.  My ears popped as we climbed.  When the road turned to gravel, Andy said, “I’m not going much farther.”

We wonder how explorers could ever find treasure in such
out-of-the-way places. 

But just as he said it, a parking lot full of vehicles opened before us.  Virginia Lakes, north of Conway Summit, boasts access to eight alpine lakes.  The cabin resort even has a café.  People walked dogs, kayaked and strolled around Trumbull Lake.  They all had on long pants and heavy jackets.  It must have been cold last night at the 10,000 foot elevation.

At 9:00 a.m. we headed on to Bodie.
Bodie is California’s official gold mining ghost town.  It was once notorious as the wildest town in the West. From 1877 to 1888, the population swelled to more than 10,000 residents and produced more than $35,000,000 in gold and silver.

After two fires in Bodie,
only one church remains.

Two random homes on the hillside still stand in what might
have been the center of the town in Bodie.

The Ranger in the museum felt that the population estimate in the literature was an exaggeration.  She thought that Bodie probably had no more than 8,500 people.

Now a State Historic Park, Bodie is the largest unrestored ghost town in the West—an authentic alternative to today’s theme parks with dirt streets, saloons, barbershops, homes and stores of a bygone era.

Cordoned off to protect the public, the old mill and mine
may still be toured privately.

The road into Bodie was narrow and winding—13 miles twisting upland through a dry canyon.  We passed the 7,000-foot elevation sign.  “I certainly would not want to be in here when it was raining,” said Andy.
It was 66 degrees when we reached the 8,000-foot elevation.  The hills spread out in a huge expanse on both sides. 

Blending the new and old, jet streaks
form unusual patterns in the sky
over the old Western town of Bodie.

“This must have been brutal in the winter,” said Andy.  “No trees, nothing to hold in the heat and ferocious wind.”
Sagebrush covered the steep slopes.  Erratic boulders dotted the landscape.  The last three miles climbed inland on a rough dirt and gravel road, but there were three cars and a motorcycle ahead of us.

Andy waits for a stagecoach in front of the old hotel in Bodie.

The boomtown years for Bodie were 1879-1881, but ironically W.S. Bodey, one of the two adventurers who first discovered gold here in 1859, froze to death in a blizzard while returning with supplies in November of the same year.

Ranger Denise in the museum said, “When the mine was at full operation, they built a steam train that ran 32 miles from Mono Mills to haul in wood to stoke the smelters and heat the houses. You can see there’s no wood around here.”

A random bath tub, a sign
of "arrested decay," remains
in the yard of a tumbled-
down house. 

                                
  She continued, “One year before the stream train, they were bringing a shipment of pipes over Conway Summit when a snow storm hit.  They couldn’t make the summit so had to hunker down for a few days until some of it melted.”  She shook her head.  “It wasn’t easy.  I guess they lost some mules.”
For three hours we strolled along the dirt and gravel streets of Bodie and imagined life in days long gone by.  Player piano music emanated from the old saloon next to the hotel.  A bright blue truck was parked at the old gas pump.  They called it “arrested decay”—enough repair for the safety of visitors and protection of what is left, but certainly subtle repairs.  Wallpaper pealed in long strips from interior rooms of homes whose only remaining furnishings were cast iron stoves and mattress springs.  We peeked in all the windows. 

Overlooking the town of Bodie,
family groupings of tombstones line Cemetery Ridge.

The mine was entirely closed off for safety reasons, but customers were free to wander aimlessly all over town.

We saw the bank vault, owned by pioneer banker and mining man James Stuart Cain (1854-1938).  At one time his bank at Bodie was the county’s only bank.   Across the street was the laundry and seamstress shop.  One side had a washer box.  The other had ironing boards and a sewing machine.

A large bell topped the two-story school.  Still fully furnished, it had a small pipe organ, slate boards, books, charts and desks with ink wells.  It could have been alive with children yesterday, except that all the books and desktops were covered with powdery dust of a hundred years.

“This was a tough place to make a living,” said Andy.

Fall colors tinge the desert as we head out of the mountains
and leave Bodie behind.

The mercantile shop, with a stuffed dressmaker’s mannequin in the window, had metal doors to lessen chances of robbery.  A roulette wheel and slot machine, both coated with the white powdery dust of a century, stood idle in one of the bars.  It is said that in its heyday Bodie had more than 60 saloons and dance halls.

We stepped carefully, wary of weak stairs outside and careful to avoid the hundreds of pieces of broken glass, tin cans, metal fragments and barbed wire.

Particularly intriguing was the barber shop with shoeshine and tonsorial chairs.  “Most men probably got a shave as well as a haircut,” said Andy.

The firehouse had an old horse-drawn rig inside and a large bell with a pull-chain.  It failed to serve its purpose in 1892, when a disastrous fire threatened the town and destroyed a number of homes and businesses.  But by then Bodie had already declined to about 1,500 people.

The introduction of the cyanide process in the 1890’s and the use of electricity gave mining a profitable boost temporarily.  But success was brief.  Another fire in 1932 destroyed all but ten percent of the town.

Undoubtedly not visible in the picture, a pair of peregrine
falcons alternately take off from the tufa formation
at Mono Lake

We climbed Cemetery Ridge for panoramic views.  Three sections were clearly fenced in elaborate wrought iron:  one for children, one for Masons and one for adults.  Apparently, from the dates on some gravestones, the cemetery is still being used by families today.

On the way back toward Lee Vining, we stopped several times for scenery pictures.  At the 8,138-foot elevation, changing aspen trees set the hillside apart in a blaze of color.

Mono Lake, no longer retreating,
has far to go to increase to the
agreed-upon level of 1963.

The Ponderosa pine at Obsidian Dome
dwarfs Andy, as he relaxes in its shadow.

A county park at Danburg Beach of Mono Lake had a playground for children, a spacious lawn, a wooden beach house portico high on the hillside, and a boardwalk down to the lake.  Two peregrine falcons dipped and soared, alternately landing on a tufa mass.  What a spectacular spot for an evening wedding.

We walked out to another Mono Lake beach, lined with many small tufa pillars and piles before coming to the Visitor Center.  Here, a wheelchair path allowed for beautiful views of Mono Lake.
Gigantic Ponderosa pines encircled Obsidian Dome, an ancient volcanic crater that spewed molten rock that hardened into billions of chunks of obsidian. 

Shiny sections of igneous rock at
the top of Obsidian Dome
catch the late afternoon sunlight. 

I think people might have tried to climb to the top over the jagged, loose stone.  I had no interest in trying.  Thank goodness, Andy didn’t either.
The exact date of Earthquake Fault is unknown, but judging by the jagged edges, it probably occurred in recent geologic times--550 to 650 years ago when the Inyo Craters exploded.  The two sides of the fault match exactly but have separated six to ten feet for a length of at least a half a mile.

Earthquake Fault shows the effects of an
earthquake 550 to 650 years ago. 

A couple miles off a gravel road, we hiked the half-mile in to Inyo Craters at 5 p.m. 

The sinking sun cast eerie shadows, and the ginormous…I know there is no such word, but they were BIG…Ponderosa pines towered over us.

The first in a series of three, Inyo Craters
are depressions from gigantic steam
explosions about 600 years ago.

                                        
                                        
                                        
                                        
                      The three craters were actually formed by steam explosions under Deadman’s Dome between 550 and 650 years ago.  The interpretive sign said that Paiute Indians who lived in the area had to have witnessed or at least heard the explosions.  And they must have thought the gods were very angry from the size of the holes!