Onion Valley

We drove up to Onion Valley today.  It's another one of those amazing roads that would probably never be built today.  There is a camp ground at the top of the road.  The Kearsarge Pass trail takes you into Kings Canyon and the John Muir wilderness.  There is also a trail to Golden Trout Lake.  From Independence to the top it's 13 miles and 5200 feet of elevation gain.
It's really gorgeous up there.

Jim is not dumpster diving.  He's looking at a bear box, where food must be stored, because there are bears.  This is the campground host site.  He drags a travel trailer up here, there is gas and water.  We wonder what he does for electricity.

I took this when we were on the Golden Trout Lake trail.

If we zoom in, we can see the water fall.

On both trails we were thwarted by snow.

Something fuzzy growing at the campground.

Click to enlarge.  Behold the road.

There is a lot of purple blooming stuff about midway up the hill.  It seems to have a zone.

Blooming red stuff, as well.

The base of the road is in Independence.  Tourism seems to have passed them by.  Bishop and Lone Pine are looking fairly prosperous in contrast to Independence.  It's a beautifully kept little town, streets are clean, no litter - it looks good.  However, this is out of business and is still for sale.

This is the Winnedumah Hotel, established in 1927.  They're also out of business.  The only open restaurant we saw is a Subway.  It would be nice if things would pick up for them.

It was a fun walk up and down the trails, and the scenery is just spectacular.