Manzanar War Internment Camp | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit
Ride Inyo County Motorcycle Roads, Eastern Sierra Nevada Range
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2022 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa
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Manzanar War Internment Camp | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit
Ride Inyo County Motorcycle Roads, Eastern Sierra Nevada Range
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Fifty years after the war, as the National Park Service took over the camp grounds and began to restore it, Japanese gardens were re-discovered buried in the sand.
Manzanar was especially known for ornate traditional Japanese gardens. The camp had a higher percentage of professional landscape gardeners in civilian life before the war. These individuals created elaborate gardens alongside their barracks with large ornate rocks, concrete-lined pools of water, walkways, and bridges. The location of Manzanar being within mere feet of the Sierra Range provided ample raw materials such as large rocks and indigenous plants. These ponds and gardens have all been unearthed and are still there.
Standing in the same spot 78 years later
Manzanar was especially known for ornate traditional Japanese gardens. The camp had a higher percentage of professional landscape gardeners in civilian life before the war. These individuals created elaborate gardens alongside their barracks with large ornate rocks, concrete-lined pools of water, walkways, and bridges. The location of Manzanar being within mere feet of the Sierra Range provided ample raw materials such as large rocks and indigenous plants. These ponds and gardens have all been unearthed and are still there.
Standing in the same spot 78 years later
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We call it the Benton-Crossing Loop. It’s a 70-mile high-desert loop over a 7650 ft pass that circles around the Long Valley Caldera. The Long Valley Caldera is considered one of the earth’s largest calderas, 20 miles long and 11 miles wide, creating a broad valley that Benton Crossing Rd flows across. Benton-Crossing Rd circles around the Mono-Inyo Craters.
The Caldera is ringed by mountain ranges
The Mono Craters are a 10-mile-long chain of at least 27 volcanic domes. Ash from this eruption 760,000 years ago blanketed much of the western regions of the United States. Seems like a long time ago, but the last volcanic activity in this area was in 1980 when a series of earthquakes produced uplift in the area. The volcanic activity beneath us is created by a magma chamber that’s still considered active. It also produces a lot of hot springs in the region if you're into that sort of thing. Benton Crossing Rd circles around this mountain range. No paved roads into it, or across it, we can only ride around the range. No super twisty bits round here, just very fast road.
Wide open high desert. Nobody else out here. Elevations here are 6-7000 ft.
The peaks ahead are over 11,000 ft
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The Caldera is ringed by mountain ranges
The Mono Craters are a 10-mile-long chain of at least 27 volcanic domes. Ash from this eruption 760,000 years ago blanketed much of the western regions of the United States. Seems like a long time ago, but the last volcanic activity in this area was in 1980 when a series of earthquakes produced uplift in the area. The volcanic activity beneath us is created by a magma chamber that’s still considered active. It also produces a lot of hot springs in the region if you're into that sort of thing. Benton Crossing Rd circles around this mountain range. No paved roads into it, or across it, we can only ride around the range. No super twisty bits round here, just very fast road.
Wide open high desert. Nobody else out here. Elevations here are 6-7000 ft.
The peaks ahead are over 11,000 ft
Benton Crossing Rd, Mono County | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit
Ride Mono County Motorcycle Roads, Eastern Sierra Nevada
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Benton Crossing Rd, Mono County | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit
Ride Mono County Motorcycle Roads, Eastern Sierra Nevada
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That layer of rock up ahead, that's lava, or what once was a lava flow. That mountain was once moving.
Reaching Mono Lake, a high desert lake at 6500 ft. Mono Lake has no natural outflow, water only flows in, so the water has a very high salinity as it can only evaporate leaving the salts behind. The water when you touch it feels like dish soap, and no fish can survive, only brine shrimp and alkali flies that feed off the salt.
Reaching Mono Lake, a high desert lake at 6500 ft. Mono Lake has no natural outflow, water only flows in, so the water has a very high salinity as it can only evaporate leaving the salts behind. The water when you touch it feels like dish soap, and no fish can survive, only brine shrimp and alkali flies that feed off the salt.
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Our tour was based from Mammoth in the Eastern Sierra, which is essentially a ski resort town at the base of Mammoth Mountain, and I had an epiphany that Yosemite NP was just up the road, 30 miles away. Hmm, hadn't even thought of that. But, their reservation system was still in place – if you don’t book a reservation on-line weeks beforehand, you can’t get into Yosemite NP without a reservation. The reservation idea came into play due to Covid, but with Covid over, Yosemite kept theirs in place for one more year. But, if you got to the guard shack before 6am, nobody checks, and you get in for free. Ha! Sold.
I have a military pass, but still, it’s the principle. Take your reservation system and stick it!
Up at 4:30, on the TL1000R by 5, headed up to (nearly) 10,000 feet and reached the guard shack at 5:50. Perfect timing, however, I wasn’t the only one that had the bright idea to get up at O-dark-thirty and ride into the park to avoid having to pay. I was stuck in a train of cars. Nuts. Plus, I was here to take pics and I needed daylight for that & it's fall, our days are getting shorter.
I pulled off the main highway onto a deserted side road and did push-ups to stay warm. The elevation is 9000 ft, and it's dark out. It's a wee chilly. Temps were in the 30s. Daylight in 45 minutes, pulled out my phone and watched Knight Rider 2000 I downloaded awhile back off Netflix. The Hoff had never been better in his role as Michael Knight, and the first 30 minutes were campy ridiculous fun. They even brought back Edward Mulhare, Michael Knight’s Alfred. And Mitch Pileggi from the X-Files as the bad guy, seriously? This was 80s gold. So campy, it was 1982 all over again. As the first rays of sun began, the temps were still in the 30s, and I headed up the road to Tenaya Lake to watch the sun come up behind me.
I recently finished writing a tour description for an all new 2023 Motorcycle Tour - Yosemite Valley & could always use some more pics of Yosemite. This place defies your brain's sense of space. Yosemite NP is sensory overload! In the early-early days of Pashnit Tours, 15+ years ago, we were riding into Yosemite Valley 3x a year with tour groups. But the reservation system killed that the last few years. Now I read Glacier National Park will implement a vehicle reservation system in the summer of 2023, feel our pain. As a biker, I want to just show up whenever.
I announced this new tour for late in the 2023 tour season a few days ago, and it’s already almost sold out. So, we'll call this research for the upcoming ride.
www.pashnittours.com
I have a military pass, but still, it’s the principle. Take your reservation system and stick it!
Up at 4:30, on the TL1000R by 5, headed up to (nearly) 10,000 feet and reached the guard shack at 5:50. Perfect timing, however, I wasn’t the only one that had the bright idea to get up at O-dark-thirty and ride into the park to avoid having to pay. I was stuck in a train of cars. Nuts. Plus, I was here to take pics and I needed daylight for that & it's fall, our days are getting shorter.
I pulled off the main highway onto a deserted side road and did push-ups to stay warm. The elevation is 9000 ft, and it's dark out. It's a wee chilly. Temps were in the 30s. Daylight in 45 minutes, pulled out my phone and watched Knight Rider 2000 I downloaded awhile back off Netflix. The Hoff had never been better in his role as Michael Knight, and the first 30 minutes were campy ridiculous fun. They even brought back Edward Mulhare, Michael Knight’s Alfred. And Mitch Pileggi from the X-Files as the bad guy, seriously? This was 80s gold. So campy, it was 1982 all over again. As the first rays of sun began, the temps were still in the 30s, and I headed up the road to Tenaya Lake to watch the sun come up behind me.
I recently finished writing a tour description for an all new 2023 Motorcycle Tour - Yosemite Valley & could always use some more pics of Yosemite. This place defies your brain's sense of space. Yosemite NP is sensory overload! In the early-early days of Pashnit Tours, 15+ years ago, we were riding into Yosemite Valley 3x a year with tour groups. But the reservation system killed that the last few years. Now I read Glacier National Park will implement a vehicle reservation system in the summer of 2023, feel our pain. As a biker, I want to just show up whenever.
I announced this new tour for late in the 2023 tour season a few days ago, and it’s already almost sold out. So, we'll call this research for the upcoming ride.
Yosemite Valley | Sierra Nevada Mountains Motorcycle Tour | Pashnit Tours
Ride the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range across Mosquito Ridge, Monitor Pass, Ebbetts Pass, Sonora Pass with Pashnit Motorcycle Tour
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This is normally our ice cream stop along Tioga Pass.
Highway 120 Tioga Pass | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit.com
Ride Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park
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Check out that glow. Tuolumne Meadows is a high mountain meadow at 8600 ft.
Nobody up here but me.
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Nobody up here but me.
Highway 120 Tioga Pass | California Motorcycle Roads | Pashnit.com
Ride Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park
www.pashnit.com
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