The day after visiting Manzanar, we continued heading north on U.S. 395 towards the town of Bishop and the Volcanic Tablelands. We were excited about visiting Bishop and boondocking in the nearby BLM Volcanic Tablelands. It was still somewhat windy, but the weather forecast was for the wind to die down, so we forged ahead.
Island Girl climbing the washboard road up to the plateeau
With help from our friend Nina, we found a nice campsite on the tablelands (only a couple are suitable for big rigs). It had a 360-degree view of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range to the west and the town lights of Bishop and lower mountains to the east. Absolutely stunning, see my review here.
That evening we stayed at our campsite and enjoyed the view.
The next morning we got up to watch the sunrise. The sky was clear, so the sunrise was quite subtle. But it was a beautiful morning. Except for the fact that it was still a bit windy.
We opted for a drive on Fish Slough Road continuing on to the Chidago and Red Canyon to search for petroglyphs. The sites were not too difficult to find, although most of the interpretive signs have been removed to minimize vandalism. But we could still tell where the major sites were as there were clear parking areas.
We walked around at several different sites and found quite a few petroglyphs. We were pretty impressed with the number and clarity. Not much is known about them except that they were carved by ancestors of the Paiute-Shoshone.
There were also some pretty interesting rock formations along the way.
All along our drive, we didn’t see another person until we reached the very last petroglyph site. One other couple arrived just as we were leaving.
We returned to our beautiful campsite but it was still windy. Sitting up on a hill as it was, it was quite exposed. So we decided to move on to Mono Lake to join our friends.
~ Brenda
We enjoyed taking the drive up Fish Slough road, visiting all the petroglyph sites with Nina and Paul a few years back. The mountains were snow-capped, making for a nice contrast against the etched rocks. Looking forward to your grand adventure. Wish we were tagging along.
We were so pleasantly surprised by the petroglyphs, didn’t expect to find so many. There was just a tad of snow on the mountains – it’s been a tough few years as you know – very scary. Must have been beautiful with the snow-capped mountains. Wish you were too – come to Yellowstone we are going in two days!!!