Henceforth I ask not good fortune—I myself am good fortune; Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing. Strong and content, I travel the open road.—Walt Whitman
5/2 – Day One
I left home today. Home as in Panamint Springs, California, not really my home, but I like to think of it that way. It makes me happy to know the Cassell family who runs the place won’t be going anywhere, and hopefully I can come back soon.
I got about four hours of sleep and woke up at 6AM. I finished cleaning my trailer. I love that trailer, I love having a BED and a SHOWER! And a space where I can play music, have warm breeze blowing through windows, have electricity… I stood looking at the clean trailer. I was angry. Grr… what the hell… I have to leave… grrr… this place is so beautiful. I was sad. It feels like I’m giving up something great, and for what. It seems like I can never just be satisfied. To be honest, the trailer is missing the door. It’s old, falling apart and has rats sometimes, but it doesn’t take much to make me comfortable. Compared to the side of the road? The free life… That’s where I’m going while I still can. The bike was packed, and my backpack too, everything I need, everything I own for now. I got on it, turned away, and rode down the hill from my trailer.
I went to the restaurant for breakfast and said a few last goodbyes, then I was off. I pedaled up Father Crowley, a good 3000’ climb to start this trip off right! The day was really nice, perfect weather for me, and once the endorphins started flowing my sadness was forced to wear off. I had drank a lot of coffee at breakfast, that might have been part of it. Biking across the Darwin Plateau and I ran into Mike and Elmira, that was great seeing them, and we stood on the side of the road for a while. I clearly felt elated when they found me and I was having a glorious time. My head was full of thoughts but I was happy to be living outside in the sun and beauty, and this happiness which had bloomed could not be contained.
The scenery was sublime, all the mountains looked perfect today. Soon I made it to the Darwin cutoff road, and then cruised down the Darwin plateau. It rained on me, but desert rain is great and I stayed totally dry. It only gave me magical super powers, more endurance and adrenaline to fight the cold. The wind at my back; it feels like little feathers brushing against me. Oh, I feel the feathers, that means I have wind powers and fly along a bit faster.
The Sierra Nevada and Mt. Whitney came into view, bold and stark as ever. I took some pictures even though I had taken the same pictures many times before. Today I knew I had to make as many miles as humanly possible, actually I had to do that every day. I was originally planning to take it a little easy at the beginning, get to Bishop and take a zero day to get the biked tuned up and buy groceries. No! I can’t because a rain/snow storm is coming for three days, and the weather is supposed to be fine for the next three days until then. Basically I need to bike while I can, when the weather is good. Also I need to get out of the Sierra Nevada regions before the snow hits! If possible…
I biked like crazy all day, and after making it to Lone Pine, saying goodbye to some friends at the café, I eventually made it to Independence and kept going still. The mountains range gleamed in the evening light, this was the farthest I had ever biked away from Panamint. I tried to take back roads, but they dead ended. I learned the system I will have to take on in order to climb my bike and my possessions over those barbed wire cattle fences. What a struggle! But those back roads were some of the prettiest places, there’s trees growing in patches and around houses, a type of tree I’m in love with. It smells sweet, really sweet, like the best sweet canyon perfume, water-in-the-desert smell. They are bright, contrasting green to the surroundings.
Biking through Owens Valley today and I realized how fertile it is. The scenery is wild desert mountains striped with color and jagged granite spires towering above, but the valley floor has water running through it. Leafy greens grow and blooming irises decorate the horse pastures. And it smells unbelievably good. This place is a secret, and it’s warm. Not TOO hot like down in Death Valley, but still warm. This place is the finest part of the country, its paradise.
After going 80 miles, I thought I could keep going, I tried another back road, the sun was fading. I wasn’t tired, I could keep going… But then it became hopeless and I collapsed in a fantastic spot with a view of my favorite most jagged mountains. I watched the sunset illuminate them, turning a giant cloud of verga orange and pink. The rain and verga is great to watch, I’m sure it will be a stormy month of May but at least I’ll have storms to watch.
5/3 DAY TWO
Began today around dawn, just south of the town of Big Pine. It was a fantastic and leisurely morning, biking along 395, my favorite highway. Definitely could not ignore the trees, which glisten so green in the sunshine and smell… they smell so good it’s just the best smell on earth. It’s my favorite smell, very sweet. I biked passed farms, took pictures, and soon was passing through Big Pine.
After ten miles, I passed through Big Pine, now just 20 miles from Bishop. Onward! It was an easy ride into Bishop, amazing I can look at these enormous mountains all day, watching them change as I pass them, and continue along on totally flat ground. In Bishop, I stopped for a long time at Eric Schatts Bakery, my absolute favorite bakery of all time. I bought some junk food, ate an éclair, and stocked up the bike. Then I went to the grocery store and bought more food for the journey ahead. I made a trail mix with the thin, crispy, oatmeal raisin cookies from the bakery, excellent flatbread crackers, honey peanuts, puffed chickpeas, sunflower seeds… I’m sure there was more stuff in there, some dried cranberries and apricots. It would be like horse feed to fuel my riding for days to come!
Finally, after killing many hours talking on the phone and just hanging out, I left Bishop. The ride north of Bishop was the best ride of all. I went down a huge hill to Rovana and Pleasant Valley, the dark cloud cover came in, and a strong wind blew from the south. This gave me wind powers! I was flying along, looking at the awesome scenery. Here, I recognized scenes from the Pacific Crest Trail in the mountains above me. I could see Bishop Pass from one angle, I recognized the mountains behind it. Then I realized I was looking right into LeConte Canyon. The beauty of this place is unreal.
I can’t find enough superlatives to describe how amazing of a day I was having, it was perfect. I realized this bike trip was going to be a lot of fun, probably a really good idea. Well, we’ll see, if I can make it! I climbed a mountain after that, Sherwin Pass. It was a 3000 foot climb and I was not able to make the top before it got dark on me. Oh well, I had made it close, and setup camp with the best view. I was now in a sparse forest of pinyon pines and looking directly into LeConte canyon, the mighty waterfalls of Dusy Basin frozen still and the whole scene covered in snow.
I was camped on the side of the highway, but I don’t mind that. I was actually in a very strange spot in the middle of a switchback, with cars passing below me and above me. I was completely private though, it wasn’t too cold up there and I slept comfortably.
5/4 DAY THREE
Woke up at dawn again, I don’t even need to know the time. Why bother turning on my phone to check, its day time now, I’ll stop biking when it gets night time again. What a lifestyle! I went back to Sherwin Pass and before too many grueling hours had passed I made it. It was a tough pass.
The top was cold and fantastically beautiful. Huge mountains on both sides of me, covered in snow. I started going down the other side, and passed the little resort town known as Tom’s Place. I love that place, with large rock ridges on the side of the road and cabins built into them. I entered a pine forest finally after all this climbing. I’m up here at over 7,000 feet of elevation now, it’s cold but sunny, and I’ve made it to the pine forest. I’m no longer in the desert, I left Inyo County and entered Mono County. Goodbye Inyo county! My favorite one of all…
But Mono county is pretty nice I must admit. The ride from there was difficult with many large hills. I passed massive snowbound peaks, up here at 7,000 feet I was much closer to them. Here they are more personal, you are riding through them, where as in Inyo county they are far away above you. I passed the enormous Crowley Lake, in a vast basin of desert sage and scrub which I had to cross to return to the forest. The White Mountains stood shining white in the distance, to the east of the Sierras.
Finally, it probably took me until midday but I didn’t know the time, I made it to Mammoth Lakes. Victory! But I still need to get to Lee Vining before I can claim victory. I’m still trying to cover as much distance as possible to get out of California before the storm hits. The scenery was the best in Mammoth, and then the forest became the thickest yet. I took a nice break laying under pine trees, looking off to the mountains through the branches.
When I was biking again I met a girl. She was biking too and we biked together! It was really cool, for quite a while we biked together and talked all about life. I really liked this girl, she was from Hudson, New Hampshire, literally two towns away from my home town in Massachusetts. That was amazing, she lives in Mammoth and was just laid off from her job. “Why should I get a new job?” she wondered. She said she didn’t like people, and I said I understood, but that there’s a lot of good people out there too. I’ve learned you can see the good in most people if you take the time to look.
Then I biked up Dead Man Pass, heading up to over 8000 feet. By the top, I did feel a little dead… or more alive than ever! Then came the steepest hill yet, and I raced down the mountain at an almost out of control speed. Wheeeew, cruised passed the town of June Lake, okay, guess I’m not stopping in June Lake! Then came some vast landscapes and enormous snow painted mountains before me. These were the mountains of Yosemite. I had to stop and lay down for a while here, enjoy this place.
The rest of the hill brought me to see Mono Lake. Like Crowley Lake, it is a drainage of the mountains in a vast desert basin. Ah yes, I know this place. Pretty soon I was in Lee Vining. Now I made it! The storm is definitely coming, the mountains were growing dark with wild clouds. The wind was chilled, but the sun would still shine hot between the clouds. I found my way to a gas station restaurant I remembered, sat down outside where there were outside electrical outlets for me to take advantage of to change my things. It was so quiet there, so peaceful, no one was around. I went and ordered tacos, they were authentic. They were the best tacos I had since Mexico!
Lee Vining is a little strange though, something about it. It’s very cold and miserable, but also too hot in the sun. But worse are these biting gnats that swarm you constantly, mutating out of the haunted, alkaline waters in Mono Lake. This town is like the Sierras ugly stepsister, people don’t come here nearly as much as they go to Mammoth. It’s a lot less fancy, no ski condos. The colors around here are beyond drab, so muted, all purple and grey. But mostly grey. I like it here, probably wouldn’t want to live here though. After I hung out at the gas station for way too many hours, I got back on the bike. I had to bike 8 miles along the Mono Lake shore where I saw the storm really taking form. The clouds gathered, the mountains up towards Mammoth I could see were getting hit. A rainbow opened up over the lake. The scene was fantastic.
Then I hit the straight shot. Highway 359, (a funny way to label the route which connects highway 395 in California to highway 95 in Nevada…). It went dead east, on the map it literally made a straight line for about 20 miles. It was 55 miles to Hawthorne, Nevada, which I assumed wasn’t much more than a ghost town. The sun poured golden in the afternoon through the storm, the Sierras said one last goodbye to me, and above the long highway to Nevada an enormous rainbow opened up. I biked towards it.
I went a long way that evening until darkness really started coming. I setup camp on the side of this incredibly lonely road, far away now from the Sierra Nevada. They were distant through the sage, and looked spectacular and different than I had ever seen them. The gnats had been destroying me every time I stopped biking, but thankfully they had died down. I setup camp inside a juniper tree, to try and shelter me from rain which never came.
5/5 DAY FOUR
Dawn brought me yet another incredible morning of biking. I always feel very fresh in the morning, after the first couple miles wear off. Then throughout the day I feel fresher and fresher until by evening I feel like I could keep biking all night! I don’t know why I feel so good! But it is keeping me in high spirits, I know I will be very alone on this trip. But I’m never alone because I seem to have like five people living in my head and I just talk to myself in crazy accents constantly…
Right, so I continued my way down the straight shot out of California. I know I said I don’t think I want to live in Lee Vining, but actually I saw the perfect little high desert cabin with that unique, Wyoming-like view towards the Sierras, and I thought I’d like to live here after all someday. The gnats are no more when you get this far from Mono Lake. Who knows, but I live here this morning. Then I hit Nevada. I had to rejoice a bit at the state border, then I went downhill.
I went downhill for the next 40 miles but it was still exhausting, having to climb many small hills along the way. It was deserted, I hadn’t seen a car all last evening or all night, today I might have seen five cars. I dropped off the jagged edges of the plateau which is California, it’s no wonder they say California is going to separate from the US and drift into the ocean. California has a distinctive edge in this region, it really is a dynamic place. Now I enter the countryside of America.
I thought of the pioneers and pilgrims making their way across Nevada to get here. I’ll get a feel for their journey on this trip and always think of their amazing struggles. It was many exhausting hours but soon I saw Hawthorne, Nevada on the shore of massive Walker Lake. Like Mono Lake only bigger, and the snowy peak Mount Grant and its insidious range drop right down to the lakeshore on its western edge.
It seems like I always get to cruise downhill through the little towns and I love it. Hawthorne was like that. Hawthorne was like an oversized town of Darwin! (All the houses look like they were built from things the people found in the desert.) But it was a larger town than I thought, with all the services one would need. It was sun drenched and warm, and I smelled that fragrant sweet canyon smell again. I sat under a tree and realized it was this tree making this smell I had become so obsessed with. I believe it is a type of Acacia tree.
I would have loved to stay at the crappy little motel in Hawthorne, it would have been cool to spend more time in the quirky little town, but I was off! Now I was on a real highway, 95 through Nevada, and it had a lousy shoulder. 395 in California had a wide bike lane style shoulder the entire way, not here. Here was a rumble strip which I would sway into every time I looked over my shoulder, bumpbumpbumpbump. Otherwise it was a very narrow lane. Semis would pass me constantly, WHOOSH! They would carry a huge draft of wind with them which would pull me along, or if they were coming the opposite direction it would slap me in the face.
Now it was afternoon, and I was taking on a long road going around the shore of Walker Lake. It was still a good 500 feet above the lake through, carved into the mountainsides with sheer cliffs dropping off to the lake at times. It was beautiful, but the wind started kicking up. It was blowing in my face this time, giving me anti-wind powers and slowing me down. I watched the wind pour violently across the lake. In the distance on the leeward side, huge sandstorms kicked up. They blew maniacally over and around the lake in twisting patterns. Then the clouds really darkened. Like every afternoon in this month of May, the storm was back.
The mountains here I had already decided were evil and out to get me. Damn this beautiful highway. I could see so far, I could see I had a long way to go. I came then to a scary place. The road was carved into cliffs with huge drops to the lake, a narrow shoulder with a guard rail in case the cars wanted to hit me and squish me against it. If only one obstacle could be removed… The wind which would come in gusts and blow me out of control at times, or the narrow shoulder, or the guard rail so I could take shelter from my least favorite obstacle, the passing semis. But dealing with all four of those treacherous things at once really did suck.
Okay well, the trip had been going so well, but this pretty much is horrible. That’s a shame, but I kept fighting all day. When I got passed Walker Lake after many hours I felt victorious. Then however, the highway was climbing a hill and the headwind picked up ferocity. It became so strong I was having real trouble biking against it. It made me mad, I had to slump down into a ditch beside the highway and sulk.
Then I kept fighting! All the way until dusk. In Nevada there is open space. So much space. A lot of times the bushes are only ankle height on the open plains of dirt as far as the eye can see, providing no shelter from the space. After searching a while I found slightly better shelter from the wind, in a large floodplain type area with taller bushes. I setup my camp in those bushes, sheltered from the wind but in no way protected from the storm to come…
5/6 DAY FIVE
In the wee hours of the morning, it rained hard on me and I was unprepared for it. I stayed mostly dry but couldn’t sleep through it. Some of my stuff was prepared for rain, I had some of it in a bush with a tarp setup over it. Much of my other stuff was not ready, because I didn’t think it would actually have the guts the rain. Oh but it did.
I did fall asleep eventually and woke up at what I assumed was 4AM. I looked up to the cloud darkened sky from my damp bivvy sack, then in one foul swoop the rain came back on me. It rained steady until 7AM, the coldest time of the morning and the worst time for rain because it prevented me from getting up out of bed. Actually my best bet when it’s raining is to not move, as to not disturb the condensation on the inside of my bivvy. The inside of the bivvy was soaked by now, fortunately my sleeping bag is fairly waterproof too. The outside of the sleeping bag was slick with water by now as well, but inside it I had my own little pocket of miserable sweaty heat, wrapped in my sheet.
At some point I screamed as loud as I could, I yelled and cursed and cried. It was horrible, and unrelenting. Will it ever stop? I always wonder when in the thick of a storm. Finally it did. It was so cold and so wet but I had to get up and face the loathsome morning. That was hard. My shoes were full of water, the saddle bags on my bike were also full of water because I hadn’t taken proper precautions to secure them. Some of my things were floating around in the swill. My biking clothes were damp as ever but I put them on. My rain gear was my pillow, it was alright but everything was damp. To make matters worse I was camped in this clay, and it had become thick and horrible mud. Everything was covered in mud, my bivvy sack, my shoes became caked in it. The bike was caked in it. I tried to rinse some off the bike gears but I had limited water. It was cold. Everything was bad but I carried my sorry lot to the road and continued biking.
After only about a quarter mile I met this old man… He was on a “bicycle” and had been camping just a short distance away from me. I wondered if he had heard me screaming… He wasn’t much more than a crazy little face with a big bushy white beard, white hair everywhere sticking out from the little hole of his rain poncho. He looked as cold, soggy and muddy as I was, but he was like 75 years old! His setup however, looked much more horrible than mine, he was towing this enormous trailer heaping FULL of stuff. It was pulled behind another trailer, an American flag flying, and soggy bags of trail mix hanging off his handlebars. On the front of his bike he had a picture of a baby, I guess he was riding across America to protest abortion which he saw as murder. I pretended to agree with him, but personally think a women must be able to choose if she needs an abortion or not, and it’s about as much murder as jacking off into a toilet, or having a period, sorry!
Anyway, he was definitely bat-shit crazy and I loved it! He rambled on and on about nothing and I listened happily. He brought my spirits way back up! It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one suffering the morning I just went through, and I feel like he felt the same way. Apparently, he covers about 10 miles per day, which I felt bad for because I had just done 80 the other day, and was set to cruise the next 40 to the city of Fallon in half of today. It would take him three days just to get to Hawthorne. I was covered with mud and I knew I had one place to go, Fallon, where I’d get a hotel room.
I got to the little town of Schurz on the Indian reservation. A pretty cool town where I stopped at the run down gas station and bought coffee and pastries. The girl there said I had great energy and brightened her day, “Well I feel so much better than I did a couple hours ago it’s impossible to not feel extremely happy!” I told her. I took my shoes off on drying picnic tables outside, took off my socks in the sun, took off all my wet clothes and tried to let them dry and had coffee and chocolate. Eventually, I kept moving.
The rest of the day became easy as the sun shone bright and cold. The wind slowly whisked the moisture away and once afternoon hit I was dry. The mud flaked off. I climbed a small mountain pass, it was easy! I zoned out way deep into my head… then I was coming down from the mountains to the vast plains of the Lahontan Valley. I stopped to watch the empty view, I could see the trees of the city of Fallon in the distance.
I hit the plains and it was a very long bike ride, probably 15 miles of totally pancake flat. I felt like I was in Iowa! It was beautiful, fragrant again, and humid. There were farms, there were trees standing lonesome in the open space. When I’m in a place so flat, I kind of feel like I’m towering high above the landscape. It’s a strange feeling, I do like the flat places.
Without further ado I arrived in Fallon! My destination! Immediately I was confronted with Motel 6 and stopped for the night. I was so happy to be here, and that night it rained all night as expected and the next day it rained too, but I bought two nights! Taking a zero day, well-earned as I pushed ahead of my schedule to get out of California before the storm. Now I was thrilled to be in a hotel room listening to the rain pitter pattering outside. And it’s a good thing I did because the night I got rained on… well the small mountains range north of Walker Lake got snow covered. I saw a picture on Instagram… the entire Mono Basin and town of Lee Vining received a foot of snow on the ground! It would have been horrible to wake up to that, and have to wait for them to plow the road. So I made it by just in time.
Today I write this sitting at a marvelous pizza place in Fallon, ready to hit the road again tomorrow. Also there seems to be no more rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future. I’ve covered 306 miles, 1000 left to Montana! So actually I’m already kind of ¼ of the way. Having a blast, what a great trip, tomorrow the trip really begins…
“On the road again, going places where I’ve never been, seeing things that I may never see again, I can’t wait to be on the road again!”
