Autumn Interlude, Part 1: North from Oh! Ridge

After all, one can stay away from the Sierra Nevada for only so long. October is my favorite time of year up there, the change from one season to the next colder one and all that change brings with it, an opportunity to escape the hold-over heat plaguing the southland, and if your timing it good, you might even get an early season visit from a frigid snowstorm. For thirteen years October has been out of bounds - that old school year is pretty inflexible that way, and during all that time vacation meant Summer vacation, and little else. This year October came back into play and I was going to welcome it; I was also going to, finally, put Mountain Biking the Eastern Sierra's Best 100 Trails to some use - postscript: Whoops, apparently that book has not been added to the Library, though it is on the shelves I never got around to doing a review of it. I will fix that soon. In the meantime, trust me, there is a book by that title.

Riding north from the Oh! Ridge campground at June Lake on some of those dirt utility / forest service roads accounts for the dirt portion of the June Lake Loop as, roughly, outlined in the book. The remainder of the Loop follows along paved Highway 158. I have done much of that in the past, and was not interested in repeating it this time, instead keeping the wheels in the dirt. The dirt roads, actually mostly pumice and granite/sand, traverse a roughly triangular shaped swath of land between Reversed Peak and Highway 395, with June Lake on the south. The main route follows a, mostly, straight power transmission line, but roads parallel, criss-cross, or otherwise meander through the area. The main challenge here is finding the most compact side (or maybe it's the middle) of the road(s) to spin along. Choose wrong and, unless you are riding a fat bike, you will leave those wavy-lined, fish-tailing rear wheel tracks in your wake. Even so, you can ride pretty fast. That is until you reach a hill; the roads tend to go straight up and down, not bothering with switchbacks to ease the way.

From the various high points there are some great views - back toward June, along the route you just rode over, north to Mono Lake, and east to the Mono Craters, where the Panorama Mountain Bike Trail is your tempting next ride. Even though the land is mostly sagebrush (not that there is anything wrong with that), there are also some nice stands of pines enticing you to rest in their shade, listen to what the breeze whispers as it sighs through their branches. I can't guarantee that all the secondary roads out there lead back to the spine, the main one, but the boundaries to the area are as distinct as they get, and there is little problem finding the way back to June when you have either reached the northern end, or otherwise had enough.

easy access to the ride from the Oh! Ridge campground

heading out - you might be able to make out the road heading up a couple rises in the distance

high point of the route looking back toward June

and north to Mono Lake; big, straight drop off this hill, or...

take the switchback (Mono Craters in the distance)

view to the east

alternate, parallel route back to June

many years ago, in Death Valley, I found some ruined cars and thought they might make an interesting series called "The Only Good Car." Add this one.

back at camp I had ridden past this without noticing it, but the mrs. saw it and made me come back to take a photo. I was pretty sure it was a semi-joke, but she was rather perturbed by the sentiment.

Next up: Autumn Interlude, Part 2