Eastern Sierras Road Trip - In Search of Arches

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Val and I are not early risers, but Doug and Janis are so by the time we were up at 7:30, Doug had run a few miles and then gone for a walk with Janis.  After everyone had showered and eaten breakfast, we were ready to hit the road and start our day.

The first thing we wanted to do was to visit the Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor's Center in Lone Pine and while we found the displays interesting, the ranger was less than interested in helping us.  It didn’t really matter as we are pretty familiar with the area, but it’s unusual to find a ranger that isn’t eager to share his knowledge.

Doug, Janis and Val in front of the Visitor's Center

They were taking in this great view of the Sierras.

Our next stop was the Museum of Western Film History that is located in Lone Pine.  The Alabama Hills area is a favorite place for movies to be filmed, particularly westerns.  Back in the 1930’s and 40’s they averaged a new movie being started every week.  Most of the movies were “B” cowboy movies but there were also plenty of feature length movies being shot too.  The museum was great; I was expecting just a small museum, but this was quite large and had an extensive collection of memorabilia as well as a full history the movies, actors and other information.  We really enjoyed our visit and I would recommend it to anyone visiting the area.

For my birthday, Val had given me a book on the Arches of the Alabama Hills by Orlyn Fordham.  The author had located over 70 arches and other landmarks and provided GPS coordinates that I entered into a map program (GAIA Maps) and tracking some of them down was our goal today.  We weren’t going to try to see all of them, but we were going to try to see the author’s favorites and that was our next activity after returning to the house and having lunch.

After lunch we headed off into the Alabama Hills, which didn’t take long as our rental house is right in them.  One thing to bear in mind, the arches of the Alabama Hills are not like the arches you might see in Arches National Park, they are much smaller, but very interesting none the less.

Our first stop was the Whitney Portal Arch.  With the GPS coordinates marked on my map it was easy to find the trail.  He said the walk was an easy short hike, but he is probably much younger than we are and although it wasn’t too bad, there was a climb in and out of a deep gully with lots of deep sand making it more difficult.  When I was in my 20’s or 30’s this would have been quite easy, but at 74 I have to admit that my age is catching up with me a bit.

Nonetheless, we all made it, but were surprised to find that the arch wasn’t on a trail, but off in the distance at the top of a steep hill.  Val and Janis said they weren’t going any further, but would wait for Doug and I.  We started off cross country to get to the bottom of the hill and after hiking for a bit, we realized that the bottom of the hill still seemed quite a ways off so we decided it wasn’t worth it and headed back.

The start of the trail

The Whitney Portal Arch is very difficult to see in this photo without zooming in.  We had trouble finding it until Janis spotted it.

Here is a zoomed in view of the Whitney Portal Arch.

Doug and I decided to take the trek over and up to the arch, but as we hiked across the open terrain we realized it was much further and more difficult than we thought and gave up.

Val and Janis waited in the shade while Doug and I made our ill-fated attempt to hike to the arch.

We start our hike back to the car.

Doug and I on the trail.

The next arch we decided to visit was the Mobius Arch. It's very popular and well known among photographers as you can shoot a picture of Mt. Whitney framed by the arch.  That walk also proved to be a bit arduous (for us older folks) and Val decided to turn back.  After a hip and two knee replacements walking in rough terrain is a lot more difficult for her than it used to be.  Many years ago my dad and mom had brought us here to show us the arch so she had already seen it anyway.

The Heart Arch at the beginning of the trail.

The trail to Mobius Arch.

Doug, Janis and I pressed on and finally found the arch.  It wasn’t exactly the way I remembered it, but that was because of my memory not because the terrain had changed.  After spending some time at the arch and the nearby smaller Lathe Arch, we headed back.  We found the trail was actually a loop and the way back was much easier than the way in so if we had known that, Val could have easily made the hike.  Oh well, she enjoyed her time anyway.

The Mobius Arch with Mt. Whitney framed in the background.

There were a couple of old movie sites in the area so we drove by those, but you had to use your imagination as there was nothing left to see.  It was getting later and our hikes had taken lot more time than expected so we decided to forgo the last arch we were going to visit as that was another arch that required an overland trek.

The whole Alabama Hills area is interesting though, so we spent some time exploring some of the side roads and then driving the whole length of Movie Road that would take us back to US 395 north of Lone Pine.

We stopped to watch these mules on our drive back.

My brand new 4Runner covered in dust after only one day.

We were all a bit tired by the time we got back to the house so we relaxed a bit.  Tonight, Doug and Janis were taking care of dinner and Doug grilled some chicken and zucchini and along with bread and a salad we had a very tasty and wonderful dinner with more of Val’s chocolate cake for dessert.

We relaxed after dinner and made our plans for tomorrow and I decided to try my hand at astrophotography.  Another book Val bought me for my birthday was how to take pictures of the stars.  I had tried it a bit at home, but with the lights of Atascadero, the stars weren’t very bright.  I figured that here in Lone Pine the stars would appear much brighter and they did when you looked at them, but my photo results weren’t very exciting.  I don’t know what I did wrong, but the results were disappointing.  Oh well, I have a few more nights this trip to hone my skills.

Although this picture shows a lot of stars, the lack of something in the foreground makes it pretty uninteresting.