The final leg
As luck would have it, I acquired an unshakable cold. Most of my exploring “want to do’s” need to be tabled for a future journey. Needing to keep it simple we decided to stick to just driving and camping. No hiking either, but we did sneak in a Mono Lake stop.
There is just a lot to see and do in this area of our state that it’d be a shame not to show more than just our short Mono Lake stop. Fortunately, I was fortunate to explore HWY-395 with a girlfriend roadtrip last May. We traveled up to Lake Tahoe and I’ll share some of those stops and pictures here.
Lake Tahoe
We arrived in Nevada to a great Boondocker host with the intent of day tripping up to Lake Tahoe. Instead, we turned our stay into major downtime and rested up instead. I so enjoyed our trip in May and wanted to go explore a couple more trails with Steve this trip. Although we didn’t get up the mountain here are some fun shots of my girlfriend trip last May.
Mono Lake
The visitor center makes for a nice rest stop in this stretch of highway.
The below pictures were taken May 2019 on my girls roadtrip. All from the south edge of the lake at the Mono Lake South Tufa area. It’s a nice area to get closer to the lake. There’s a boardwalk path down to shore. If you’re brave enough there’s also a swimming beach just a little further down, watch for the signs to Navy Beach viewpoint. Make sure you know where the fresh water is before jumping in. You’ll want to rinse really quickly before you get crusty.
More Lake stops and stays on the Girlfriend Roadtrip!
June Lake
Twin Lakes and Twin Falls near Mammoth
Made a quick stop up at the ski lift area and a long easy hike just outside of Mammoth.
Convict Lake
Enjoyed a nice hike around the lake and about 15 minutes before getting back to the car, the clouds had moved in and poured rain and hail on us. Needless to say, we were soaked. Note to self…a blue sky can be misleading!
Ancient Bristlecone Forest
When traveling through the area, I highly recommend planning time to explore this forest. Allow a couple hours just for driving to and from the visitor center and a stop at the overlook. It’s unique scenery makes it a worthwhile stop. Simply hike the Discovery Trail or pick one of the longer hikes back further into the forest. We didn’t stop this trip, however, last May it was a key stop for the girlfriend roadtrip. The high snow made driving to the visitor center and trudged up the road on foot. Ugh! Hiking even on the discovery trail wasn’t simple either. I really wanted to revisit this while here in October without snow…which we will do next time through!
There is much to see and do off of HWY-395 and there’s much more if you head into the Sierra’s with Yosemite, Whitney, King’s Canyon, Death Valley National Park and on and on. Make the journey!
Working on Exploring 