THE PILGRIMS OF WHITNEY PORTAL - WHITNEY PORTAL ROAD

IN THE HIGHEST REACHES of the Sierra, in the region of Whitney Portal and Kearsarge Pass, the human inhabitants are comprised mainly of sinew. Perhaps some bone upon which to hang the sinew, but mainly sinew. They drape their lean bodies in breathable fabric that expels sweat but guards against the sun's cancerous rays. Food they carry on their backs. Feet are shod in Vibram and heads topped with broad-brimmed hats that would make John Wayne bust a gut.

“Pilgrims,” he’d spit. “Damned pilgrims.” He’d rein his big sorrel round and ride off down the mountain.

I MENTION THE DUKE because six miles east by road and about 6,000 feet below, John Wayne and John Ford conspired to bring the west to the masses. The rolling hummocks of the Alabama Hills still provide Hollywood with its greatest on location location.

Advised by Henrietta, the proprietress of the Mt Williamson Motel in Independence, I straddled the BMW and headed south to Lone Pine. At the light, a right turn placed me on Whitney Portal Road some thirteen miles from the trailhead. The paved strip heads straight for those Alabama Hills and then lilts over some and around others. With each crest or turn comes a new scene. One had the Duke dwarfing his pony. One had Jimmy Stewart trying to talk sense to Henry Fonda who cracked and ate pecans. Chuck Conners spoke to a little boy who called him “Paw.” And John Ford yelled into a megaphone, something about getting a camera positioned while the shadows were just so.

Past this playground of imagination, the road rises in long, steep stretches, perhaps a half-mile at a clip, only to arrive at a hairpin nearly 180 degrees and head upward in the other direction. This it does until the breadth of the Owens Valley, as well as much of its length, is spread beneath one’s feet. The town of Lone Pine, perhaps forty bocks in total, can be covered by a thumb at arm’s length. The century-mark temperature has cooled with each increment of elevation gain. The flora transitions. Sage, mesquite and creosote thins. Tiny thickets of willows cluster in gully bottoms where shade must predominate. Further up, those protected areas yield stands of white fir and Ponderosa Pine. Pinions bravely grow in dry, windy, exposed areas.

Whitney Portal Road zigzags toward the crest. The view with each switchback captures a little more breath than is returned. Three sharp granite arêtes rise from the spine of the Sierra; gleaming testaments to the eons-old conflict between uplift and erosion. Whitney is one of them – highest point in all of California. Lone Pine Creek cascades from above. The meadow at its rest is lush.

Within a mile-and-a-half of the trailhead, cars begin to litter the shoulder. Subarus, Toyotas, VWs, a Saab or two; but mainly Subarus: the sorrel ponies of the twenty-first century. At the trailhead, no parking remains. I quietly putter the BMW through two or three graded lots unable to find a spot large enough to lean the motorcycle on its side stand. I note the pilgrims. The ones made only of muscle and clad only in labels from Sierra Designs or REI or Royal Robbins. In most parking lots, the GS Adventure will raise an eye. Appreciatively, someone will say, “Nice bike.” Or “Beautiful, man.” Or “Where’re you headed?” Here, the pilgrims’ eyes remain down. The occasional one who looks up, does so with unmasked scorn and disdain. John Wayne in reverse. Had they but cotton in their mouths, I’m sure they’d spit.

RIGHTFULLY SO. My journey to the top indeed stole my breath, the views panoramic, with pictures dramatic. But the adventure I had enjoyed, the exploration in which I’d engaged, would neither tax me nor try me in the manner confronting those scaling California’s highest reach.

I will return from a good trip with good stories. The pilgrims will return with better.

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press

WHERE TIME PASSES BY - US 395 AT INDEPENDENCE, CA

“TIME JUST SEEMS to pass some places by.”

I agreed.

The speaker was a tourist from Santa Monica. “We can’t let a year go by that we don’t spend some time here.” He reached his arm over his wife’s shoulder as they walked beside me along the main street.

(c) Winnedumah Hotel

I’d arrived in Independence the night before and was leaving the next day. I had attempted reservations – both on-line and by telephone – at the Winnedumah Hotel, a classic Art Deco structure in the middle of town. John Wayne stayed here. So did Glen Ford and Cary Grant. Anyone who was anyone making Hollywood films in the Alabama Hills, a few miles south, stayed here. But the Winnedumah’s on-line reservation service was on the fritz and, according to the tourist, “Sometimes Frank he don’t call back.” Out west, when freed of Santa Monica’s influence, this is how one talks.


PRIOR TO BEDDING DOWN the night before, I walked Independence’s tiny grid of streets. North of town runs Independence Creek. Five eight- or nine-year old engineers worked.

“Anyone need a big rock?” hollered one, bent over a water worn stone the size of a healthy cantaloupe.

Two turn to assist. They weren’t asked twice. They just helped. The goal was clearly understood, as was the means to achieve the goal.

It has been fifty years since I witnessed eight-year-olds attempting to stave the current of a rushing stream. Actually, I was a participant. Now, since parents are afraid of what might happen to those offspring who dare venture outdoors, kids play video games – independent of one another – or surf an Internet teaming with predators not found in our city parks or along stream courses.


I SECURED LODGING at the Mt Williamson Motel, a collection of ten by twenty foot “cabins,” each large enough for a shower-toilet-sink bathroom, a queen size bed and a television with a 12” screen. A small air conditioner grunted attempting to cool the 107-degree to something reasonable. By about 1:00 AM, it had.

Henrietta, the proprietress, insisted on fixing breakfast – scrambled eggs, sausage, fried potatoes and toast – and dining along with me and the other two patrons.

She hailed from Switzerland and told six-decade-old tales of the allies dropping munitions in a field near her home in Zurich. She talked about immigrating to Kansas City in the late 50s and of a German-born neighbor was unable to tell the native Missourians where he had been born. She worried about her husband who’d recently suffered a stroke and the influx of illegals who were only coming over to take and not give. She told me that Maria would be cleaning my room should I go out for the day.

“There’s much to see,” Henrietta advised, “just not much in town.” She counseled a visit to the Eastern Sierra Museum, here in town and up to Onion Valley for a close up of the eastern Sierra escarpment and across the Owens Valley to the Inyos; and if time allowed, to Lone Pine and trail head at Whitney Portal. “But before you come back, eat in Lone Pine. There’s really nothing here.”


THUS, I SPENT MY LAYOVER day exploring those suggested sites - sites usually rocketed past on 395 by those racing between the LA basin and Reno. Mid-afternoon found me back in town, hoofing on Main Street with the couple from Santa Monica.

“Any place to get a beer in town?” I asked.

“Nope. Not until 5:30 when the pizza place opens up, if you’re here on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Which you are.” He grinned. “That’s part of the place’s charm.”

I nodded, but I really did want a beer.

INDEPENDENCE HAS NO BAR. No grocery store – the general mercantile closed a while back. No hardware. A café that’s shuttered. Two gas stations with convenience outlets, the Winnedumah and several tiny motels. Two houses on one lot may be had for under $130,000.
In the evening, as the sun sets over Mt. Williamson and shadows creep up from the toes of the Inyos, people walk the neighborhoods on both the east and west sides of 395. They greet me as I wander past. In the little city park just north of town, children build rock dams in the creek.

The Santa Monican’s words echo: “Time just seems to pass some places by.”

© 2010
Church of the Open Road Press