Driving up Highway 395 north from Los Angeles, several constants are apparent: a constantly changing landscape, a constantly higher elevation, and a constantly smaller population. While towns like Lone Pine and Bishop offer small, village-like worlds of life, most of the drive is empty, save for the winds that whistle through the passes, and the ghostly histories of people who lived in "them thar hills" decades ago, relics of the gold rush and a military past that continues into the present day.
The Story of Manzanar
World War II buffs might recognize Highway 395 from its association with a sad chapter in American history - the Japanese relocation center, Manzanar. Manzanar is located midway between the towns of Lone Pine and Independence, and upon entering the grounds, you can't help but feel a sense of irony that this tranquil area (whose name means "apple orchard" in Spanish) once housed an internment camp housing over 110,000 Japanese Americans who were corralled there by the US government after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Now little more than a remnant of what was a once massive compound, Manzanar is a huge open area, populated with brush and occasional trees and tucked in a flat plain between the mountains. Through most of the camp, markers note where buildings once stood, as the buildings themselves are long since gone. Aside from the visitor's center, the only still-standing memorial to what happened here is a small graveyard.
Through the front gates and to the right is the visitor's center, where free self-guided driving tour maps are available. The visitor center also houses a museum documenting the area's history, starting from its days as a Native American settlement and going up through its time as an internment camp. Silent and solemn, what makes Manzanar most compelling is the fact that even today, military planes punctuate the skies overhead, reminding you that though the camp's chapter in our history is now just a memory, the shadow of war is ever-present in this landscape.
Ghosts of Bodie
Further up the road from this collection of ghosts lies yet another chapter of the state's haunted past. In typical boom and bust fashion, California's gold rush gave birth to dozens of little towns that sprung up in the heat of the economic boom and then fell victim to the inevitable bust that eventually befell the gold mining industry. As a result, the state is a treasure trove of abandoned towns full of ghostly history. One of the most photographed of these ghost towns is Bodie, located 13 miles off of Highway 395 (the last three miles off which isn't paved). Founded in 1861 by William S. Bodey, mostly abandoned in the mid 1940s, and then declared a National Historic District, Landmark and Park in the 1960s, the town, once almost 10,000 residents strong, is now only home to the occasional prairie chicken and the park rangers who care for the grounds.
Surrounded by hills and a lone sheep farm, Bodie is the town time forgot, permanently petrified and left to sizzle in the prairie sun and the bone-dry winds of the Eastern Sierras. Everything from old cars to empty liquor bottles lies scattered across acres of land that make up what was once the second largest town in California. This town, once known (according to the California State Parks website) as the "most lawless, wildest and toughest mining camp the far west has ever known," is today a fascinating tourist attraction, its still-standing and furnished buildings a vestige of a different time - a time when the local firehouse was still a one-room building and outhouses were de riguer. The mining town, now a state park, closes at 4 or 5pm (depending on the season), giving you plenty of time to combine a visit to Bodie with a sunset viewing of another ghostly locale, Mono Lake.
Eerie Tufas in Mono Lake
Mono Lake, like Bodie, feels empty, though in the case of the lake, the emptiness is merely a facade. When Los Angeles began diverting the lake's waters south, the lake's alkalinity skyrocketed, making it inhabitable for fish and halving the lake's volume. However, the lake and its surrounding watershed are most definitely not empty-the region encompass 14 ecological zones, offering safe haven for over 1000 plant species and around 400 vertebrae. Alkali flies and brine shrimp populations proliferate in the still waters, offering a feast to multiple species of birds who gather at the water's edge and indulge themselves.
What makes Mono Lake most interesting, however, is not its high salinity, but the unusual formations, called tufas, that pepper its south end. The tufas, calcium carbonate spires, form from the combination of the alkaline lake water and freshwater springs. Much like the hoodoos of Utah, Mono Lake's tufas create an eerie landscape, jutting out like craggy fingers reaching into the blue sky. At dusk, the fading sunlight casts phantom-like shadows across the lake's surface and shoreline, and the tufas glow in shades of orange, pink, purple and blue. The shifting waves of thousands of alkali flies give the impression that the sand is moving beneath one's feet, further enhancing the eerie and haunted feel of Mono Lake.
Other Activities Along Highway 395 in the High Sierras
If only a weekend is available for travel, it is best to focus on these two locations, though one can easily slip into the eastern side of Yosemite National Park, which lies only about twelve miles from Mono Lake. However, with the size and scope of Yosemite, it's best to save that trip for another weekend. Some additional sights to see along Highway 395 include the Eastern California Museum (which houses exhibits on the Eastern Sierra), the Beverly and Jim Rogers Museum of Lone Pine Film History (documenting the over 400 movies filmed in and around the Lone Pine area), and the Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center (which offers exceptional views of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states).
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