Sierra Nevadas down towards the Mojave Desert

Posted by Fin on 18 November 2009

After 3 awesome days in Yosemite, we headed down over Tioga Pass on Highway 395 in Eastern California past Bishop towards the Mojave Desert and Death Valley on the border of Nevada. The contrast from pine forest and granite mountain ranges to sandy yellow desert within a matter of 24 hours was alarming, as we dropped thousands of feet into the sandy abyss. We camped rough on our first night in the desert to check out the stars. I woke with ice over the tarp and sleeping bag with Alex telling me his watch had recorded a temperature that night of -8.9 C......baltic! I was rather anxious about the Mojave Desert and Death Valley as there are few towns and therefore water sources are scarce. I also had no idea how large the passes were...cycling up 5000 feet only to drop down to sea level and having to ride back up to 5000 feet again was not in any of the online websites I had researched. So during the few days riding towards Death Valley I tried to savor the downhill stretches which lasted several days as we dropped from one of the highest points in the USA to the lowest...but as the good old saying says, ' what goes up down....must go up...!' (or is it the other way round?)

24 comments. Tags: Fin, . Location: Bishop, CA, USA