Day 50, Friday, 02/15/08

We got up yesterday morning expecting to stay put in 29 Palms to ride out the high wind warnings for the area that were coming in with the cold front. But the winds were not bad and it was so cold it snowed a little. If we stayed we would be confined to the motor home all day. That did not sound like a good idea, so we packed up and left. Good day to drive! But instead of going directly to Death Valley, we decided to go to Lone Pine, CA, up the Eastern Sierra Mountain Range, and right at the base of Mt. Whitney - the tallest peak in the lower 48 at 14, 495 feet. We can still access Death Valley from here, but we are on the west side of the park.

The winds did pick up about half way along the 250 miles to get here. And by the time we got to Lone Pine they were really strong with warnings out along the highway to use caution.

Woke up this morning to sunny skies and 34 degrees with moderate winds. But the view!

Today we are going to drive the CRV up over Panamint Pass and down into Death Valley. If it looks like an easy drive for the motor home, we will drive it over tomorrow or the next day and explore the National Park a little more throughly.

We are about 60 miles from Fresno "as the crow flies", but the few roads over the high mountain passes are closed due to snow in winter until April or May. The round-a-bout way is about 275 miles by my guess but we are planning on going to see Dan anyway before we head back down south to El Centro for the March 8th Blue Angels air show.

So while in this area of SoCal we will end up visiting the following National Parks: Joshua Tree, Death Valley, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite. The last three of which are only reachable this time of year from the Fresno area.

Due to the holiday weekend the few electric hook-up sites in Death Valley were booked. We need electric to run the air conditioner for the dogs if we do any hiking at all. So we are going to do a rest day tomorrow here at Lone Pine. Then on to Fresno to visit Dan and see the other National Parks. We will then swing back to Death Valley to camp during the week next week when we can get an electric site. That's the plan tonight. However, we change plans often - that's what great about this RV travel!

One more thing. The mountain passes into and out of Death Valley are not as bad for a motor home as some have said. Our scouting drive today left us confident that Blueboy is up for the task.

Pictures below. I can only post 5 pictures at a time to the Blog and it is difficult to have them all fall into proper order. So rather than try, I just upload them and let them fall as they may.

Temperature in Lone Pine when we left at 12:30 - 48.
Temperature in Death Valley 90 minutes later - 72.
Temperature in Lone Pine now at 8:15 - 44.

Drive into Death Valley

Drive into Death Valley. From Lone Pine we go up over the Inyo Mountains and down into Panamint Valley in the picture here, then up over the Cottonwood Mountains in the distance before down into Death Valley.

Ellen Jo looking "cool"

Another picture of drive to Death Valley

And another

Another

Panamint Valley from the top of the Inyo Mountatins

View of Mt Whitney from our Lone Pine campground entrance

Panoramic view of the Sierra Mountains from our campsite. The Sierra Range is on our West side, while the Inyo Mountains and Death Valley are on our East side. The Sierra's are obviously higher and more rugged.