Wednesday, September 2, 2015
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| Devils Postpile NM |
We had a busy day, first visiting Devils Postpile National Monument. The monument is in the Mammoth Lakes area. Visitors are required to park that the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area and use the shuttle bus. The shuttle bus runs from 7 to 7 and the wait between buses is only 20 minutes or so. We arrived at the park around 9:30. There are 10 bus stops, but in general the first stop (which is bus stop 6) will be in the middle of the park at the visitor center. The Devils Postpile is an easy 0.4 mile one way hike. The hike to the top of the pile is well worth it, but it is about a 15 minute hike to the top.
Devils Postpile is assumed to have been created about 100,000 years ago. Lava flowed from an unknown location and ran down the valley until it ran into something which dammed the lava’s path. Lava pooled up to 400 feet behind the dam before cooling. The lava is believed to have cooled at a very slow rate and as it contracted and cracked it formed hexagonal columns. 80,000 years after the piles were created a glacier pushed through the area exposing the sides and tops of the columns.
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| Devils Postpile NM - Rainbow Falls |
Once we were done marveling at the postpiles, we continued heading down the trail (about 2.1 miles) towards Rainbow Falls. The falls are 101 feet down and named after the number of rainbows that are usually displayed at the bottom of the falls. It was not clear enough during our visit to see any rainbows (darn wildfires). The park was by far the smokiest park we visited during our trip.
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| Devils Postpile NM |
We hiked back to bus stop 10 to get on the bus. In hind sight hiking back to bus top 9 would have probably been a lot flatter. The hike to 10 was quite steep. There is food available at stop 10 (the only site within the park). We managed to do all that hiking by noon and only had a short wait for the bus. The bus took about half an hour to get back to the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.
Overall there are about 8 miles of trails at the park. A bad wildfire occurred at the park in 1992, the effects are largely observed during the walk to Rainbow Falls. That fire, which was sparked by a lightning strike, burned 82% of the National Monument.
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| Manzanar Cemetery |
Our last site to visit for the day was Manzanar National Historic Site. Manzanar was a World War II relocation and internment of Japanese Americans from the west coast. The site is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Our visit started at the Visitor Center. The park was not too busy; we were able to watch the 22 minute film, called Remembering Manzanar, before looking at the displays. The video provided great insight to the conditions that the internment people had to live with. The visitor center is quite large with very well displayed information. Outside of the visitor center, there is a 3.2 mile self-guided driving tour. There are two reconstructed barracks to observe – one displays what conditions were like when people first arrived (minus the holes in the ceilings) and one what the barracks were like after then had been there a while (they built furniture). Also along the driving tour, you can visit some of the unearthed rock gardens as well as the cemetery. We spent roughly two hours visiting the site.
After checking in at the Best Western Bishop Lodge for the night. We headed to dinner at Holy Smoke Texas Style BBQ and it was good - I had the redneck taco (cornbread with pulled pork and coleslaw on it). The hotel room was decent, somewhat recently remodeled. Breakfast was normal hotel fare.
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