A Slight Mis-Calculation

California is a pretty amazing state. Yesterday I was sailing again in Santa Barbara Strait, today I ended up at 9200ft in a snowstorm. I didn't mean to get there, my little Prius was not happy with me, but it is pretty cool that I could go from sea level yesterday, to 9200 ft today, and tomorrow hop over the Inyo Mountains and get to 265 ft below sea level in Death Valley.
To catch you up on yesterday's events: I decided I had to stay one more day in Santa Barbara so that I could go sailing again. I was about to head into the desert portion of my trip and wanted a little bit more ocean before heading off. The guys at the sailing center said the afternoon winds were better so I decided to go to the Santa Barbara Mission in the morning. The Mission was cool, in a geeky museum sort of way that makes for dull reading. I'll just summarize by saying the most impactful part of the tour was the section about the blacksmithing, leatherworking, woodworking, weaving, and farming the Missionaries had to do. It was impressive to realize that when the Friars first came in 1782, they were volunteering to be completely self-suficient: any kind of tool or object they needed, they were going to have to make it themselves.

The sailing was great, went for three hours this time and they only charged me for one! I got out far enough from the shore to get into some real Pacific Ocean waves; long rolling swells that lifted and dropped the boat about four feet. Nothing dangerous about it, but it was a completely different feeling from anything I've ever experienced before. It was like little hills that come right at ya. The bigger ones would crest at about the height of my head, but they were smooth enough that it was a gentle ride up the side. Impressive though.

I got out of the boat and headed straight inland towards the Mojave, trying to see how far I could get before it got too dark to see anything. I spent the night in Palmdale, a huge, boring subdivision of Franchise Hell on the edge of the Mojave.

My goal for today was to drive up 395 to Lone Pine in the Owens Valley, a long valley between the Sierra Nevadas and the Inyo Mountains. Lone Pine is at the base of Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain peak in the lower 48 states (although its only a couple of hundred feet taller than Mt. Rainier). From here I can pop over into Death Valley early in the morning.

It is a pretty long drive from Palmdale to Lone Pine, but today I learned the difference between miles on a dead straight interstate at 75 mph, and miles on a spaghetti noodle state highway going about 40 mph like I have been doing all down the coast: I was half-way here by 10:00 am! So, I needed a detour; grab the map and see what side roads I could take . . . hmmmm . . . that little squiggly line seems to go up into the Sequoia National Forest and wander around in the Sierras before dropping back down to 395 again . . . looks great, I'll go that way.

It started off super cool, driving through a forest of Joshua Trees at first, then crossing some sort of altitude or climate line that switched it over to pine trees on the slopes with cottonwoods growing in the river bottom. I got some great pictures of this High Chaparral landscape that I'll put on Facebook in a few. The whole loop was about 100 miles, winding its way deep into the Sierra Nevadas and then dropping back out to the valley through a pass.

Well, I learned a thing or two about passes today. Passes in Washington are something I am quite familiar with: they are all at about 3500 ft or so, they are all maintained by road crews, and you can count on them being only about ten degrees cooler than the temperature at their base. None of these things are true about passes in the Sierra Nevada. I was approaching the base of the pass, the roads were clear and dry, there were high clouds but the sun was out and it was 49 degrees. These conditions in Washington would mean that the top of the pass would be a piece of cake, no problem. Sure, I was already at 4000 ft at the base of the pass, but what of it? If it only drops ten degrees it will still be above freezing even at the top . . . right?


Wrong. Man, that pass just went up, and up, and up, and up! I was constantly sure the crest was going to be just around the next bend. My map did not list an elevation for this minor little pass but, how high could it be? Here are some of the signs I drove past: "Road not cleared past Johnsonville" (never saw Johnsonville), "Chains Required" (I had chains, no prob, won't need them), "5000 ft", "6000 ft", 7000 ft" (hit snow here), "8000 ft" (there are no tire tracks on the road, just pure snow), "9000 ft" (good god, it has to top out soon!). The top of the pass was at 9200 ft! That is almost 2000 ft higher than the very peak of Whistler mountain! Oh, and the temperature at the top? 39 degrees like my estimate? Try 16. Shit.

The Prius actually did very well. The east side of the pass had only a couple of inches of snow and the Prius handled it like a champ, no problem. I figured I just needed to get over the top and life would be good. Thank heavens I finally broke down and put the chains on just past the peak, because the other side was far worse. I was in an amazing forest of Sequoias, with amazing views, but socked into a full on snow storm with over 12 inches of snow on the un-plowed road. The car was bottoming out on the drifts of snow. This was very, very not good. I was in the ass end of nowhere, no cell service, and very little chance of other vehicles. It was beautiful, but I white-knuckled it the entire way through.

Toyota makes very good cars, I just have to say. Even the Prius has great traction control. Yes, it would be nice if I could disable the loud beeping every time it detects a slip in traction (ups the tension, doesn't help), but it must have some sort of slip-differential or power transferring system because it powered its way up hill, through nasty icy ruts covered in powder, snow-plowing the road in front of it with the bumper. Also, the Engine Braking setting on the transmission is pure genius and made the down-hill trip so much safer.

Don't worry, Jess, I'm not going to make a habit of it, but it was quite an adventure. I took the side road at 10:00 am, traveled over 100 miles on it in five and a half hours (half of that in the pass), and returned to 395 only 20 miles north of where I pulled off in the morning. But still made it to my planned stopping point at Lone Pine by 5:00.