395 公路, 十月US 395, October

The Bay Area does autumn reluctantly: the trees put it off until December, and then it rains, so there is basically no autumn at all. For the real thing you drive east for half a day, over the crest of the Sierra, and come down the far side. On a Saturday in mid October 2024, I set out.

South on 395#

US 395 runs along the east side of the range, snow mountains on one hand, desert on the other. Bridgeport is the last town before the stretch I had come for. The houses and the maples could pass for New England, but the desert at one end of the road and the snow at the other kept reminding me this was California. I kept driving.

Farther south the highway climbs over a pass and Mono Lake spreads out below, a dirt road running dead straight for the shore. Past Bishop, past Big Pine, I turned off onto a side road into the mountains. The navigation ended at a trailhead, and I started hiking.

California’s little Patagonia?#

The trail follows Big Pine Creek: pine forest first, then talus, and the climbing almost never lets up. The aspens in the canyon had gone fully gold, and a waterfall hung out of a crack in the rock. Something of the flavor was already there. No lakes yet.

Over the last rise, the first lake. The naming here is thrifty: First Lake, Second Lake, all the way up to Seventh. The water is a blue-green that doesn’t look quite real: glaciers grind rock into flour, the flour hangs in the water, and the light scatters into this color.

Twenty minutes on, Second Lake appeared, and Temple Crag appeared with it: a wall of granite hundreds of meters high, standing straight out of the water, a row of spires along the top. ok… Patagonia? I hadn’t seen the real one back then, but the water was blue enough. The name went on first.

By the time I started down, the sun was on the ridgeline. The moon came out first, hanging in a sky that was still bright. It was tiring for real, and worth it for real. When I reached the car, night had closed all the way in.

Hot water, bread, aspens#

Hot Creek, first thing the next morning: a stream winding through a gorge of volcanic ash, its water heated somewhere underground and sent back up, with a few pools of a blue-green that looks faked.

Out of the gorge and into Bishop, I bought a loaf at the old bakery: Sheepherder Bread. An honest name on an honest-looking loaf.

Twenty minutes up the canyon road out of Bishop, the aspens take over. The whole of Bishop Creek canyon was turning, wooden cabins scattered on the hillside with their roofs buried in gold. There is a 15 mph speed limit sign on that road; the people on foot were moving slower than the cars.

At North Lake the mountain lay in the water, right side up and upside down, equally sharp. Lake Sabrina next door is a reservoir, down a notch for the season, white rocks showing along the shore and one small boat sitting out in the middle.

Mono Lake#

In the afternoon I got back on 395 and drove north, and finally saw Mono Lake up close. The water is too salty for fish; what grows in it is stone. Tufa towers form underwater, a little at a time, and they stand exposed now because Los Angeles drew the lake down. There was no wind that afternoon. The water lay flat as glass, and a few birds crossed above the towers.

Home#

I went home on Highway 120, up past Lee Vining to Tioga Pass, through Yosemite’s back door.

Over the crest, the light began to go. Above the fields at the foot of the western slope, the sun turned into an orange ball with no rays at all, and I followed it west. As for what the real Patagonia looks like, I put it on the list.