David and I – he on his Aprilia Falco, I on my Suzuki V-Strom, a motorcycle odd couple if ever there were – left San Francisco at 8:15 on a bright and cool July morning. As we left, the Safeway parking lot was filling up with Homoto riders off on their own holiday weekend adventure. We followed the usual route to Escalon, where we stopped for gas and saw signs announcing road construction on 120 east – so we decided to head north to Farmington and east on 4 instead. After a long and annoying detour through Arnold caused by a holiday parade (who holds a Fourth of July parade on the Second of July anyway?) we stopped at Dorrington for a well-deserved burger, only to discover that the World-Famous Lube Room was "temporality" closed.
Unfed but undaunted, we continued east on Highway 4 up toward Ebbetts Pass. The crowds at Lake Alpine were intense, but we stopped at the Lake Alpine Resort for lunch. The wait for service was mildly annoying, but at least there was a guitarist to entertain us. Then we remounted and onward we roared, toward the 8700-foot summit.
Despite a few gravelly hairpins – now there's a name for a punk band – on the way up and down, we made good time to the junction with 89 and Monitor Pass. The scenery throughout was absolutely splendid, and since the rain/snow season had only ended a few days earlier, everything was unusually verdant.
Shortly after we turned left on 395, I did something I hadn't done in just under two years: I left the state of California. My warning to David that I might disappear into a puff of smoke upon entering Nevada was, fortunately, unnecessary. After a fill-up at Topaz Lake, we got back on 395 through the ever-increasing afternoon heat and turned right on a little road headed east. This took us through some typical Nevada scrub and then to the miserable little town of Wellington, where we turned back south toward Bridgeport. This road – Nevada 338 and then California 182 – was an absolutely lovely stretch of completely deserted sweepers, past Bridgeport Lake and finally into Bridgeport itself.
After Bridgeport we briefly rejoined the traditional QIDV route, stopped for gas in Lee Vining – where I chatted with an R1200GS rider from Texas who expressed envy that we Californians can ride these roads wherever we want – and then took the June Lake loop. I was leading, and David wanted us to stop in case of pretty scenery, but the whole section was so pretty that I couldn't decide upon the best place for a photo op. We ended up pausing by Silver Lake, the middle of the three chained lakes that line the loop.
Then we transited the town of June Lake, with more prettiness, and got back on 395 north for a bit before turning right on 120 to enjoy the easternmost roller-coastery section of the road. We stopped about halfway to Benton to clamber over some rocks and enjoy the view of the White Mountain range – our destination for the following day. The whoop-de-dos on 120 didn't disappoint, but too soon we got to Benton and then had to endure a long, hot, monotonous slog to Bishop for dinner.
It was in the high nineties, or perhaps the low one-hundreds, when we arrived in Bishop to rustle up some grub. Fast food wasn't on the table for either of us, so we went to the opposite extreme and dined well – and expensively – at Whiskey Creek. Finally, at 9:00pm we motored south to Big Pine. The weather was still stiflingly hot, so we had the unusual experience of getting heat-blasted after dark. When we finally got to our designated lodgings, the motel thermometer read 96° at 9:30 pm.
The Bristlecone Motel was more inviting than the Bates Motel, but only just. The lone air-conditioning unit in our two-room suite was wholly inadequate to the task of making the space comfortable for sleeping. To add insult to insomnia, someone just outside our room set off fireworks at 1:30am, leading me again to wonder when the Fourth of July became a three-day event.
Day 2 - Big Pine to San Francisco - 399 miles
And now for the highlight of the ride: the trip up to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest, which is home to some really old trees with spiky seedpods. First, though, we had to struggle awake and conclude our business Big Pine, where it was already 75°F at 8:00 AM. After a coffee and a nosh, we were off up California 168, a fun stretch of twisties and sweepers and a short one-lane stretch sandwiched between rock walls.
A couple dozen miles of this led us to the White Mountain Road, a nicely maintained bit of two-lane graytop that swoops and shimmies up to the land of the ancients. Our first stop, some 15 miles up, was the aptly named Sierra View overlook, where a short hike rewarded us with this:
Although it seemed like we had already climbed halfway to heaven, we actually had another 2,500 vertical feet to go. Next up was a visit to Schulman Grove, where the visitor centre was unfortunately burned down in 2008 and which is currently graced by a trailer. When we got there it was vacant, so David deposited some money in the fee tube and we hoped for the best. Among the three available trails – one of which leads to "Methuselah," the oldest living thing on earth besides Joan Rivers – we opted for the one-mile "Discovery Trail." This climbs for a few hundred feet through varying stands of living, nearly-dead, and thoroughly dead bristlecone pine trees.
In between gasps for breath (we were at 10,000 feet, after all), we exchanged pleasantries in our best Bostonese and discussed the merits of dendrochronology, which is a kind of like a big thing up here.
After the summit, it loops around to the west side of the ridge and provides stupendous views of the White Mountain Road and the peaks beyond.
The grand finale of this visit to the high country was a 12-mile ride on a gravel and dirt road to the Patriarch Grove area. So for 12 miles we juddered, shuddered, bounced, jounced, and clattered over rocks, holes, ridges, mud, and dust. Lots and lots of dust. Despite owning a V-Strom, I am not an especially experienced or confident non-pavement rider, so we took the road at a steady 20 mph. After about 11 miles, the road magically turned to pavement again, past an elevation sign for 11,000 feet – which means this, not Tioga Pass, is the highest paved road in California.
At the very top, or at least as close as we were able to go – since the road to the Patriarch Grove parking lot was closed due to snow – we dismounted again and went exploring. A brief traverse of a large snow patch took us to a rather healthier-looking stand of bristlecones.
After a brief snowball fight (I'll get you next time, David!) it was time to head 7,500 feet down to Bishop for some lunch, but not before discovering that AT&T has somehow managed to provide 3G service up here – a capability that eludes them in other, more populous locales, like wide areas of San Francisco. Gingerly we rode back to Schurman, at a slightly more confident 22 mph, and paused again at the beginning of the paved road to savor the fact that we had conquered it without any embarrassing mishaps.
We retraced our ride back to Big Pine, not without a few "oh, shit!" moments on my part in some inconveniently-placed patches of pea gravel, and finally back to Bishop. As we sat down for lunch at Erick's Bakkerÿ, surrounded by tacky Hollandiana, my iPhone showed the temperature at an even 100°. After preparing ourselves for the hot road ahead – filling Camelbak, dousing shirts, etc. – we pointed ourselves north.
As elsewhere throughout this trip, the scenery along 395 was enhanced by riotous greenery, and the effect was like riding through an enormous 3D toothpaste commercial. We made a beeline for Bridgeport, where we gassed up ($5/gallon, ouch!) right next to a field where a rodeo was taking place. Cowboys galore. Then we turned west on 108 for the climb up Sonora Pass, which was – as usual – an utter delight, despite the occasional slow car (and a couple of slow motorcycles).
After the obligatory summit photo, and nearly getting nailed by a Jeep as I re-entered the road, we glided down the staggeringly beautiful west slope and all too quickly entered the endless tunnel of trees that leads almost all the way to Sonora. As the temperatures got stickier, so did the traffic, and many liberties were taken with California laws regarding passing on double lines and maximum speeds. By the time we reached Jamestown, where David nearly got taken out by a car doing a U-turn in front of him, it was already 6:30 PM and we still had three hours to go – three hours that went by mercifully fast and uneventfully. After a final stop at the Eden Canyon exit to change glasses and clothes, we said our goodbyes and threaded through suburbia back to The City. And as I made the final turn from Market Street onto Douglass, my only thought was: "Let's do that again!".
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