June 7, 2014 - Bodie and Mono Lake

Tufa's at Mono Lake

Title: June 7, 2014 - Bodie and Mono Lake

Description:

Today's adventure is not really a hike, but it is at least a couple of adventures. I woke up around 5:30 and have my quiet time in my sleeping bag. I slept pretty well. By 6, I was out of the tent with Lee J and Karol. Sherri gets up 45 minutes later. Our Jet Boil is being uncooperative, so we borrow Karol's to boil water for our oatmeal. By 7:20, we have left to make it to Murphy's Inn in Lee Vining by 8, which we make in plenty of time. Here we do a prisoner, oops, a passenger swap-Donna for Dennis.

Our first stop of the day is Bodie SHP, a gold mining ghost town. We cut off of 395 and head 10 miles down a paved road, followed by 2 miles of decent dirt road, before getting to the guard station before opening time.  So we had a nice social time as well as time to wait for the rest of our group to catch up with us as some did not make the turn off of 395 at the right place. But we all got in line at the proper time before the park opened.

Bodie

Bodie

Karol, the tour guide

Church

Jail

We all sorted ourselves out into smaller groups and wandered through the ghost town, examining the structures of this town. Sherri and I latched on with Karol and she become our tour guide. She used a self-guided tour sheet of about 70 different places to guide us. We found the people's names who lived in the various houses. Places like the McDonald's, the Dolan's, the Bell's and even Dogface George's-both Rose and Karol pointed out his house sort of looked like his name. Karol thinks Dogface was the town drunk-I sort of think that Bodie had more than one of these characters.

Outhouse

Lee Through the Glass

W.A.R. Loose Tombstone

Rosa May

After a dozen or so buildings we made our way up to Boot Hill-a cemetery, actually at least four different ones, including the Masonics, Chinese, and the Miner's Union. But there was also several unmarked grave sites of places bodies had been buried, but no name was attached. There was a marker on top of a hill. I climbed up and found it was another grave stone for W.A.R. Loose. No telling why this one was so special. The newest grave was of one of the Bell's who died in 2003. As nearly as we could figure out, he was born in Bodie, which gave him to the right to be buried here (we also found out that he helped preserve the town until it became a State Park). Sherri found an interesting marker of someone out the the cemetery proper-Rosa May. Later on we found out she was one of those undesirable women, which garners attraction in every town.

Stamp Mill

Several of our group when on the Stamp Mill tour, but we continued to learn about our houses from our tour guide. We just wandered from building to building, looking up each one of them.we probably walked at least two miles, if not three or four.

At Lunch

Around noon, we got together and left Bodie for the Mono Lake Visitor Center. We at lunch there and watched a movie-Ice and Fire. Good view, but not very many places to have lunch in the shade.

Lunch in the shade

 After the Visitor Center, we moved on to the a Mono Lake South Tufa area. Here we went on a short walk, about a mile. This was not so much about the walk, but about the tufa's. Interesting how these are formed. The ones we saw were through the mineral deposits of hot springs and the wave action on the lake. In the movie, it showed what s called sand tufa's. More delicate. I was, and apparently the whole group as well, were fascinated by the spires and formations of these tufa's. 

Looking for tufa formation

After we finished with the tufa's, we head back to Murphy's Inn. Dennis and Cathey allowed, even encouraged Karol, Sherri and I to shower-felt so good. Then off we went to the Whoa Nellie Deli, sometimes knows as Mobil because of the gas station. Good food to end a good day.

Karol, Sherri, Donna H and I head back to camp. But first we go around the June Lake Loop. Neither Donna nor Karol had seen it before. They were properly awestruck. Then back to camp we go. Several of  us gabbed around the bear box for awhile before going to bed.

Places: CA-Mono Lake

Mono Lake-6,378' (Nehit Island)   
(38.0076035, -119.0147628)

Description:
“Mono County and Lake are named after a wide-spread division of Shoshonean Indians on both slopes of the Southern Sierra Nevada. In speech and presumably in origin they are closely allied to the Northern Paiute of Nevada and Oregon and the Bannock of Idaho. By their Yokuts neighbors they are called Monachi. The ending -chi occurs otherwise in Yokuts and Miwok as a suffix on names of tribes or divisions. . . . The stem therefore appears to be Mona. To the Spaniards, who knew the Miwok and Yokuts earlier than they knew the Monachi, this stem might easily suggest mono, ‘monkey.’ . . . It appears that Monachi, like most of the names of the Yokuts for their own or other tribes, no longer possesses a determinable meaning.” (Kroeber: California Place Names of Indian Origin, 1916, p. 49.)
Mono County, established 1861, originally extended considerably to the southeast of its present boundary; adjusted on north, 1864, 1866, by creation of Alpine County; curtailed on south, 1866, 1870, by creation of Inyo County. (Coy: California County Boundaries, 1923, pp. 182-183.)

From PlaceNames of the High Sierra (1926) by Francis P. Farquhar

This is the most remarkable lake I have ever seen. It lies in a basin at the  height of 6,800 feet above the sea. Like the Dead Sea, it is without an outlet. The streams running into it all evaporate from the surface, so of course it is very salt—not common salt. There are hot springs in it, which feed it with peculiar mineral salts. It is said that it contains borax, also boracic acid, in addition to the materials generally found in saline lakes. I have bottled water for analysis and hope to know some time. The waters are clear and very heavy—they have a nauseous taste. When still, it looks like oil, it is so thick, and it is not easily disturbed. Although nearly twenty miles long it is often so smooth that the opposite mountains are mirrored in it as in a glass. The water feels slippery to the touch and will wash grease from the hands, even when cold, more readily than common hot water and soap. I washed some woolens in it, and it was easier and quicker than in any “suds” I ever saw. It washed our silk handkerchiefs, giving them a luster as if new. It spots cloths of some colors most effectually. No fish or reptile lives in it, yet it swarms with millions of worms, which develop into flies. These rest on the surface and cover everything on the immediate shore. The number and quantity of these worms and flies is absolutely incredible. They drift up in heaps along the shore—hundreds of bushels could be collected. They only grow at certain seasons of the year. The Indians come far and near to gather them. The worms are dried in the sun, the shell rubbed off, when a yellowish kernel remains, like a small yellow grain of rice. This is oily, very nutritious, and not unpleasant to the taste, and under the name of koo-chah-bee forms a very important article of food. The Indians gave me some; it does not taste bad, and if one were ignorant of its origin, it would make fine soup. Gulls, ducks, snipe, frogs, and Indians fatten on it.  From Upand Down California by William Brewer, Book 4  Chapter4

According to GNIS, it is also called Mona Lake: U.S. Geological Survey. Geographic Names Phase I data compilation (1976-1981). 31-Dec-1981. Primarily from U.S. Geological Survey 1:24,000-scale topographic maps (or 1:25K, Puerto Rico 1:20K) and from U.S. Board on Geographic Names files. In some instances, from 1:62,500 scale or 1:250,000 scale maps.


Trips:

• June 7, 2014 - Meetup group trip
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References:

•  Wikipedia
• Mono Lake Committee
• Mono Lake Tufa State Park
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Pictures:

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