Wednesday August 23rd

After a hot night, making good use of the fan, I headed for the mountains again. This time my destination was in California. I had a big day of driving ahead of me, over 400 miles (700km), and I was up before six, enjoying the dawn colours over the lake.

From Lake Mead, I went through a town with palm trees along the road, then headed through the outskirts of Las Vegas on highway I-215. I could see the city centre buildings a few miles away. I left early but there was still quite a bit of rush hour traffic on the highway. It was slow going for a while but not too bad. I fuelled up again on the way through; the van was pretty thirsty.

My first stop at about 8am was Red Rock Canyon, not far out of Las Vegas. There were some large coloured rock formations, which reminded me a little of the Flinders Ranges, but more colourful. There were signs warning about hiking when it was hot. It wasn't too bad early in the morning, and I just did a little hiking, and spent about an hour and a half in the park.

I was planning to go from there to my destination via a route that went to the east of Death Valley, then crossed over into California at Big Pine, but according to Google Maps, part of that route was closed, so it rerouted me along a longer route. I had planned to visit Bristlecombe Pine Forest, which was at 10,000 feet, and had the remains of apparently ancient pines, but that was on the other route which was closed.

One place I was avoiding was Death Valley. Though it looked interesting, I had been warned more than once about the dangers of going there in this season; the heat could be deadly. The Escape Campervan rules warned that if you drove there in the warm months and broke down, you would be on your own, and responsible for any damage and charges!

The route that Google chose started with about four hours driving through mostly desert or land with just some low bushes, surrounded by weird hills that were just rock, no vegetation on them at all. This section of road had been described as one of the most remote in America, but whoever thought that hadn’t seen remote Australian roads! There was quite a bit of traffic around at times, which banked up behind slow vehicles now and then until there was a passing lane (there was too much traffic coming the other way sometimes for anyone to pass) and a few small towns.

At the northernmost part of that section, as the road started to climb into the hills, was a town called Tonopah, which had the Clown Motel, which was apparently quite famous. Everything was clown themed, garishly painted, with pictures of clowns everywhere. I found a spot near the motel to park and make some lunch about 1.30, in a parking lot next to a building that looked as though it had been abandoned.

This was the first time I’d made lunch on the trip, which I did most days after that while I had the van. I decided to cook up some instant soup, but most of the time I just made a sandwich, which was easier. It was a bit windy, and I found that the stove didn't work very well in the wind, with the heat being blown away, so it took a while to heat. After lunch the road really started climbing, and toward the end I took a small road across a fairly flat, quite high area, before joining the main highway that I’d had to detour around. The landscape had become lush – lakes, green fields, trees, all very beautiful. What wasn't beautiful was the fuel price!

Petrol (or "gas") was something like $3.90 a gallon in Arizona, and $4.50 in Nevada. I assume they had more taxes on it. So I after filling in Las Vegas I thought I would hold off fuelling again till I got into California where (I thought!) it would be cheaper again. Having got to Mammoth Lakes where I was to camp, I nearly fell over seeing the price was around $5.60 a gallon! It didn’t look like it was going to get any cheaper going into Yosemite, so I bit the bullet and fuelled up there.

I think it may have been here that I just couldn’t get the pump to work. I put the nozzle in and kept squeezing the trigger, but it kept on clicking. A helpful person nearby told me that in California they had shrouds over the nozzles to avoid gasses escaping, and some kind of button in the nozzle that pressed down when you had it close enough to the car, and sometimes it took a bit of jiggling to make it work!

I drove a few kilometres from the town of Mammoth Lakes to the Twin Lakes park and campground a bit before five. As I drove through the park looking for the campground itself, I went by a store, and one of the lakes, which was beautiful. I got out and had a bit of a walk around, then kept driving on till I found the campground. The camp host was very friendly, and spoke about how much there was to see in the area. I had planned it just as a stopover on the way to Yosemite, but it was a great destination in itself.

He encouraged me to come again another time, and said there was often space for vans the size I had (which he presumably saw as small compared to some of the big rigs that came through). He also told me that the campground was at around 8,200 feet (2,500m), which is higher than anything in Australia. It was a beautiful place, with several lakes nearby, mountains with patches of snow on them, and the continual sound of a large waterfall. The down side: mosquitoes! They were absolutely everywhere!

I had a hike marked out that I thought would be good, but it was something like 15 minutes drive from the campground, and I found that once I had manoeuvred the van into my camp site, I didn’t really feel like driving around more and then coming back and parking again. Over time I did get better at backing into the campsites though.

So after finding my spot, I went off for a hike the camp host recommended, starting just a little walk from where I was, up the side of the valley we were in. As I went up I definitely noticed the altitude, and had to stop and get my breath more often. I made it to around 9,500 feet (2,800m) before heading back. There was a point with a fabulous view where I could see seven different lakes. It really was a very picturesque area, with the mountains with some snow on them, the lakes and the forests.

As I was near the top of the hike, I noticed rather large dirty white patches around, and I was wondering if they were granite or something, until I realised they were snow! There was quite a bit of snow visible in the distance on some of the other mountains around too. I was surprised to find snow there in August. It was pretty hard, and felt more like ice than snow, but it looked more like snow.

By the time I got back around sunset, it was much cooler and the mosquitoes had pretty much given up, so I was able to make dinner in peace. The camp host had warned about a bear which had been doing the rounds recently. Apparently it had scared the daylights out of some foreign tourists, putting its paws up against their van and looking inside. So he advised to keep doors locked.

For some reason I had thought about keeping them locked while away from the van, not while inside. So after dinner I was lying on the bed inside with a lamp going, when I heard a commotion, then the van rocked back and forth, and when I looked out, the driver's side door was open! It must have been the bear!

I panicked a bit because I wondered if I had a bear inside now, or it if would come inside. Thankfully no bear! I think the bear must have opened the door, not found any food, or been discouraged seeing it was occupied, then put its paws against the side of the van to look inside, then gone on. It was quite an experience! I had a site on the edge of the campground, so my van may have been one of the bear’s first ports of call for the night.

I had a quiet evening after that, which was welcome. I was glad of no more bear sightings.

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