TALES OF OUR TRAVELS AND OUR LOVE OF ADVENTURE

Friday, April 10, 2009

Fishing the Lower Owens River

For 95 years, the Owens River below Bishop was dry - the water was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. In 2006, the LADWP began letting water flow in the river channel again, and the Owens is slowly coming back to life. It is definitely fishable now - so Don and I went in search of places to give it a try. This spot on the right is below Tinnemaha Reservoir - nice clear water flowing out of the dam. Not much to catch, though.




This spot was east of Big Pine, and Don had better luck here. All three photos are the same area.







Lone Pine Campground

In case you're not familiar with this iconic image, the peak in the middle of this shot is Mount Whitney - the highest mountain in the lower 48 states (14,495'). Believe it or not, this was the view from the front door of our trailer. We could look right up through Whitney Portal from our campground. The large window on the side of our trailer had a nice view as well - down past the Alabama Hills into the Owens Valley and across to the White Mountains. Really, it didn't matter which way you looked, it was all lovely.




These mountains are to the south of Mount Whitney - I just wanted to show our trailer and campsite.










The third day at Lone Pine we experienced high winds - I heard on the radio that gusts across the high ridges were up to 100 miles per hour.

Sierra Vista

We thought we'd try to go up to the Bristlecone Pine Forest - the roads were clear up to 10,000 feet. However, there was a locked gate about 4 miles short of the grove and visitors' center, so we turned around and had a picnic lunch at the Sierra Vista viewpoint. These are shots looking west towards the High Sierras above Independence and Lone Pine.