Alabama Hills

Car
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After a sobering walk at Manzanar, I headed south to Alabama Hills. The off road trail was fun, with little stream crossings, sections where you have to slow down by a lot, and sections where you get to drive at 50mph, with the tires kicking up tons of dust.

When I made I to Alabama Hills, I visited the following points of interest:

Afterwards, I spent about an hour driving around looking for a place to camp. It seemed like all the great spots were taken, but as I was checking out the more remote sites, I stumbled upon my campsite for the night.

This valley I stumbled onto had no one else in it, and was as quiet as could be. I loved it. I cooked dinner and watched the sunset before heading to sleep.

The next day, I woke up and drove seven hours back home.


What I Learned:

  • While off-road driving, I went over a series of rocks faster than I should and I definitely scraped the skid plates. Thank god I have them.

  • There were some local looking folks eating their lunch next to a stream on the way to Alabama Hills. I couldn’t see them super well and I thought they were crossing the stream. As I was driving from the opposite direction, I waited for them for a solid 20 seconds before I realized that they were just parked in a turnout. Smooth.

  • While looking for a camping spot, I drove by this point of interest called “The Loaf”. While it’s marked as a climbing spot, it’s also a camping spot. In a cave. I really hope one day I come early enough to get that spot.

  • I have the Mavic Air drone and I found out that if I have a ND filter on it (to slow the shutter speed down), any video that I record comes out at 15fps, and is unusable for my compilation videos.

  • I had the best dinner I’ve ever had while camping, which was just heating up a Korean pre-made packet of Ox-tail soup and drowning some refrigerated rice in it.

  • Because there are mountains to the east, the sunrise shows on Mount Whitney twice. There’s a false sunrise that is very reddish, which is followed by the real sunrise as the sun peeks over the Inyo mountains to directly touch Whitney.


 

Camp Review:

  • It took an hour of driving to find a spot in the late afternoon. While driving around, I found so many great looking occupied sites that I definitely want to come back at a later time to sample them all.

  • The spot that I ended up finding was hidden away in a valley by itself and it was amazing to have a site where I felt like I owned this place.

  • There are two bathrooms, but they’re near Movie Road. Otherwise, it’s dispersed camping.

  • There are tons of things to do near by and at Alabama Hills, and it’s just amazing that it’s all free.


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Trona Pinnacles