Desert / Ghost Town Trek #36

Fall colors near Sagehen Peak, off Hwy 120 between Mono Lake and Benton, CA.

This is the first time I've come out to the desert this late in the season. Impressive display of fall colors.

Camped at 8,000 ft elevation at Crooked Meadows to get some acclimation for my Boundary Peak hike. My toes went numb overnight, it was cold!

Boundary Peak and White Mountains from the Sagehen Peak area.

Sagehen Peak.

Went up Trail Canyon Road the next day. A recent flash flood really tore the place up. I turned back at one point for not recognizing the road and thinking I was lost, it was so dramatically different.

I drove this road just seven weeks ago. Apparently Benton got a lot of damage from this storm.

View from high up in the Whites. In addition to the terrible roads, I had just gotten over a summer cold, the night time temps were worse than I thought for September, and I heard gunshots from up by the trailhead. All combined this spooked me out of the hike. It's a subtle thing, but you have to be extremely stoked to do a peak. If your heart's not in it, you shouldn't go, especially if it's a solo outing.

Drove down to the relative warmth of 6,000 ft in Fishlake Valley to camp. This was kind of depressing to ditch the hike again, but it actually turned out for the best (more on that at the end).

I make the best of the second day looking for an alternate trailhead route up the road to Middle Chatovich Creek, south of Trailhead Canyon.

There are some really nice large homes on big lots out here. What a beautiful place to live.

Middle Chatovich Creek road says, Sorry Subaru, Jeeps only, go back. Okay.

Then, just like last time my Boundary Peak hike flopped, I find a ghost town on accident, that I've never heard of and is not in any of my books.

This one was even bigger and better. I couldn't believe my luck.

Not a town but actually a mining camp of the Red Rock Mine. But with a dozen relatively unmolested structures, I'm impressed!

First building is sort of an adobe shed or bunkhouse.