With Mono Lake fading in the rear view window, Our sites were set on Death Valley. We planned a quick stop-over at a highly touted area in the Airstream community called the Alabama Hills. It is situated just outside the tiny neon emblazoned town of Lone Pine and at the foot of Mount Whitney.
Mount Whitney is the highest point in the lower 48. The Alabama hills has been a shooting location for many holly wood films. from Godzilla, Star Trek, and GI Jane, to dozens of Westerns. It is easy to see why this is the case. The hills are otherworldly and give a sense of desolation. Strange windblown rock formations are everywhere! This is another one where I will have to let the pictures do the talking.
Although it is insanely dry, the wind can make it feel like a hurricane, as was the case on our first night there (it was so cool we decided to spend an extra night). The trailer was furiously rocking… and not due to cate and my indiscretions 😉. Lightning lit up the sky but there was nary a drop of rain. The following day we set explored Movie Rd, and drove up the Mount Whitney Portal. Here I thought we were done with the terrifying mountain roads until Colorado… I was wrong. The view, however, was phenomenal! The portal road led up the mountain’s flank until we reached a little eagle’s nest of a campground and the Mt. Whitney summit trailhead. There we ran into a team of wilderness rescue guys who had just brought down three climbers, One who had been blinded by hypothermia. Apparently the storm the night before did dump some snow up on the 14,000+ foot peak. After Cate tried to break a child’s bench we burned up some more brake pad and headed back to safer environs. We sought out the möbius Arch and I tried to fly my drone… With limited success considering the wind. The next morning before we left, while Cate painted, I did get some of the best footage of the trip thus far.
On top of everything else, we were contacted by an Airstream Life magazine writer who wanted to do a profile on us !!! All that was left was to empty the pooptank and hit the road to the Valley o Death!
