2022 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa

[pashnit]

Let me tell you a story:

I have not met someone this excited to be on a motorcycle in a long time.
Ilana is Ukrainian, and the series of events that led her to be standing on this mountain top with me are mind-blowing & surreal. A few months ago, Ilana was living in Kharkiv, Ukraine along the Russian border, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. She and her 16-year-old daughter and father decided to leave after a Russian artillery shell sailed over their house in Kharkiv and exploded nearby. They loaded in their car the very next day taking only what would fit in their small car and headed for a single open road that led west out of Kharkiv away from the invasion.

After they left, the single open road was bombed and left impassable. Ilana drove westward non-stop for a week; it took 5 days to drive the 850 miles across Ukraine to reach Poland. Two more days and they reached Krakow, Poland after 7 days straight of driving. They then boarded a plane and made it to friends in Los Angeles. Her father survived the Holocaust, and once more found himself in flight from an invading army – twice in a lifetime. Ilana has settled in Los Angeles and a mere seven months after her escape from the war in Ukraine is standing on a mountain top in the Sierra Nevada Range with this Pashnit guy.

As we all stood on this mountaintop, not a sound could be heard. No wind, totally peaceful.

The contrast in those two environments was beyond our comprehension.

Ilana only a few months earlier was living in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Now, she's here with me.

Dmitry & I have been riding together for 10 years. He's originally from Ukraine and immigrated to the US as a teenager. He met Ilana via FB.

 

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The overlook is pretty cool, but we're not even at the top yet.

Still going up and passing through the 10,000 ft mark.

 

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I've been coming up here on multiple bikes for many years, and it never gets old

 

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Reaching the top, there's a plateau, and the road continues across the spine of the range for another 10 miles but is dirt from here on.

Pavement ends at the visitor center

Xavier confirms on his fancy watch. 10,001 ft.

 

[Zerks]

Great story with a happy and up to date situation! I can hardly imagine the feeling that comes from having artillery shells landing in the area a person calls home while leaving almost everything near and dear behind.

 

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Did ya notice that number?

 

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Bristlecone pine forest at 10,000 ft

Do these trees look 1000s of years old? That's what's so interesting, the oldest are over 4000 years old.

 

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Do I look 4000 years old? It looks dead, but it's still growing. Bristlecone pines can lose 90% of their bark and still continue to grow, adding new rings each year.

 

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115 BC

Schulman dated 17 trees atop the White Mountains that exceeded the 4000-year mark. Nine of these trees were located along the Methuselah Walk. The world’s oldest tree location is kept secret but coring samples are said to have dated the tree as high as 5070 years old and still continuing to grow. Using tree rings to map climatic events, via living bristlecone pines and the fallen wood from long-dead trees, scientist have managed to create a climatic and environmental timeline extending backwards 12,000 years, far exceeding Schulman’s findings from 20 years earlier. Weather patterns, volcanic eruptions, fires, and even flood events are all recorded in the tree rings.

When Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean, these trees were already 4000 years old.

 

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The tree rings are so narrowly spaced, you need a microscope to count them.

This tiny slice is hundreds of years old.

Ever get to the Eastern Sierra near Lone Pine, don't miss this place.

Come see me in 3000 years. It's beyond our comprehension, isn't it.

 

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What goes up must go down. This dirt road continues another 10 miles to 14,246 ft White Mountain Peak.

Once a year, they open the gate at the end of this road for Open Gate Day and you get within a few miles of the peak, then hike the remaining to the top of White Mountain. There are people out there that hike 14,000 ft peaks as a hobby. White Mountain Peak is one of the most easily accessible in the US.

The views up here are stunning. Just another day on a Pashnit Tour.

 

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Back through the narrow canyon.

That Xavier, he's so expressive.

 

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We ride past the Owens Valley Radio Observatory outside Big Pine. Gotta go back here.

You can see these massive radio telescopes in the distance. Such a cool place.

 

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Don't realize how big they are till you get close.

 

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A few miles south of Big Pine & Independence is Manzanar War Internment Camp. I make everybody come here.

 

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My U.S. History teacher was Mr. Muenchow. He was a short, rotund man with jet back hair and thick framed dark glasses, the kind that got dark when you walked outside and then changed to clear when you stepped back inside. He had a heavy, lumbering walk and a deep baritone voice that filled the room. Not only that, but he was also a Navy vet from the early 1960s, during the height of the Cold War. We spent a lot of time on war. The Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI and WWII. Mr. Muenchow was in his high school during the Korean War, and we touched on that too. This was a time when the Vietnam War was never mentioned – ever, it was too recent. The one other thing that was never mentioned in my U.S. History class was the forced internment of Japanese-Americans in the early 1940s.

Manzanar War Internment Camp | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit

Ride Inyo County Motorcycle Roads, Eastern Sierra Nevada Range

www.pashnit.com

What's most interesting about Manzanar is this was not the only War Internment Camp in the US during the early 1940s. There were many.
And several in Western Canada.

16 Latin American countries interned 8500 residents of German, Italian and Japanese descent. 3000 were deported to the US. Of the 2200 Japanese nationals who were deported from Latin America, 80% were from Peru. After the war years, Peru refused reentry to many Japanese-Peruvians and the US denied their residency requests.

Camps were established as far east as the Mississippi River in Arkansas, but the majority have been erased from the map & the history forgotten.

 

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10,000 internees lived in this 1-square mile.

Of those sent to Manzanar, 90% were from the Los Angeles area and 65% of evacuees were U.S. citizens. Being a US citizen didn't matter.

Manzanar War Internment Camp | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit

Ride Inyo County Motorcycle Roads, Eastern Sierra Nevada Range

www.pashnit.com

Names of the 10,000 people who lived here 1942-1945.