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Dustwind gorge4/16/2023 ![]() About 35 percent of the city’s water supply originates in the rivers, streams and groundwater of this region, and is carried downhill for more than 200 miles through multi-million-dollar aqueducts. A giant pipe near the rim of the Owens River Gorge is one reminder that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power owns 312,000 acres of Eastern Sierra land. Some Owens Valley wonders are less natural. Marked trails are scarce, but a signed path leads to a granite arch through which Lone Pine Peak and Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states, are perfectly framed. My husband and I climbed in the Alabama Hills and took a self-directed hike that wandered through sandy washes and sagebrush and skirting the edge of Tuttle Creek. More recently, the hills appeared as backdrop in parts of “Gladiator,” “Iron Man” and a fantastically melodramatic Meat Loaf video. Scenes from “Gunga Din,” “How the West Was Won” and “The Lone Ranger” were filmed here. Movie directors came to the plateau, which is strewn with weather-worn granite boulders set below dark Sierra peaks, at least as early as the 1920s. Hollywood preceded such outdoor enthusiasts in the Alabama Hills. “I climb and I never run into anybody else. Moser, who had been climbing in the Alabama Hills before his morning shift. “I’m totally out here every day,” said Mr. When we spoke, he had upgraded to more spacious quarters that still kept him near nature: a 1995 Chevrolet van. I easily found other loyalists.Īt Elevation, an outdoor gear shop in Lone Pine, I met Myles Moser, a 22-year-old sales clerk and climber, who spent his first six months in the Owens Valley camping out of a 1972 Volkswagen Super Beetle he had customized with solar panels, refrigeration and removable sleeping pads. Desert dust, wind and extreme temperatures are common, but the Owens Valley also shelters marvels, including pink, fist-size flowers that bloom on cactus plants in spring. We were traveling in the Sierra’s rain shadow, where the low rainfall less than six inches most years results in a color scheme for the wide-open landscape that runs to browns and muted greens. ![]() On my last visit, taken with my husband, we started by exploring the Alabama Hills, near the small town of Lone Pine, and slowly drove north on Highway 395 to Bishop and the nearby gorge. ![]() But it’s a worthy destination, especially pleasant in fall and spring, when the Sierra Nevada range on its western flank and the White Mountains, to the east, are mostly inaccessible because of snow. This high desert valley one of the world’s deepest is sometimes dismissed by travelers zooming up Highway 395 to the ski resort at Mammoth Lakes and, in the summer, to the campgrounds and trailheads of the High Sierra. The gorge, well known among climbers, sits on the northern edge of the Owens Valley in eastern California, a place of austere beauty and violent history, from huge volcanic eruptions 730,000 years ago to bitter water wars waged in the last century. I looked south to the river, shaded by cottonwood trees, coursing down between 300-foot-high walls of volcanic tuff. Now totally safe, I was able to relax, lean back from the anchor and appreciate the surrounding Owens River Gorge. With a final, clumsy motion, I clipped the rope that was tied to my harness into two carabiners at the route’s end. I, however, had a death grip on the rock, fear in my stomach, and a leg, balanced on a thin ledge about 70 feet up, that shook from nerves and fatigue. ACROSS the Owens River, a climber ascended a chalk-marked cliff with such strength and skill that his movements appeared effortless.
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