Sometimes as you are traveling you run across a place that unexpectedly blows you away, and I must say that the Inyo Forest did that. The day started with my intent to drive up to an Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest near the town of Big Pine. But it turned out that Inyo has so much more going for it. The layout is interesting as it is on both sides of 395 and there are TONS of places to go see on both sides. Here’s a picture.

Ancient Pine is on the right hand side about 20 minutes from Big Pine and the drive is pretty long. The little car did great though as we climbed from 2,000 to 9,000 feet. When we got to the top unfortunately the main grove was a 4 mile hike round trip and at that elevation I wasn’t really feeling it. We did get to see some trees though and one awesome 300 year old log that had fallen in the 1600’s. Amazing.

After we were done with the forest we still had lots of time until dark so we went back down to town and got some BBQ (Jack loved his bits) and then explored a few side canyons in Big Pine and Bishop. The Sierra side of the road (the left/west going north) was equally awesome and again we traveled to above 8,000 feet and saw numerous beautiful sites. The one bummer was we had missed the aspen and birch trees leaves changing but in Bishop we saw some gorgeous trees. There is also a reservation near the town of Bishop so we got some cheap (for California) gas and explored the very cool town.

My absolute favorite part was the South Lake. There are three lakes near Bishop and the South one was absolutely beautiful. We spent a lot of time there and I absolutely loved it. It was so peaceful.

It was a terrific day and I highly recommend some time in the Inyo Forest if you are in the area. Truly it is an embarrassment of nature riches.

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