Death Valley day #3: Owens Valley
This post is part 3 of the "dv-2008-10" series:
- Death Valley day #1: driving, Darwin Falls & camping
- Death Valley day #2: the Racetrack, Hunter Mtn & the boxcar cabin
- Death Valley day #3: Owens Valley
- Death Valley day #4: Warm Spring, Badwater & Wildrose
- Death Valley day #5: sand, salt & holes
- Death Valley day #6: Titus, Eureka & flying things
- Death Valley day #7: Saline Valley
We slept fairly well in the cabin that night, and got up just before sunrise. We planned to spend much of the day in Owens Valley (the valley directly to the west). We started with the drive up to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, in the White Mountains just south east of Bishop. We arrived to find that just last month, a fire destroyed the entire visitor's center. We still were able to hike the trail, and enjoy the views. After the hike, we attempted to drive the unpaved road up to the Patriarch Grove, however this road started to verge into high clearance 4x4 category after a few miles, and we didn't feel like spending a few hours driving the 24 mile round trip just to view a few more trees. We turned back,and headed down into Bishop for pizza at the Pizza Factory.
After lunch, we drove a bit further up the road to the Laws Railroad Museum. David & I visited about 2 years ago, and he loved it. We all had an enjoyable time again, and David was super thrilled when he got to pull the train whistle. Afterwords, we made the drive back south to Lone Pine, and then up to Whitney Portal for a brief look around. The waterfall still (already?) had snow & ice around the edges, and it was clear that it would be a matter of weeks until they were closed for the winter.
We finished the day by driving back east to Panamint Valley where we ate & camped at Panamint Springs Resort(PSR). PSR has a very loyal group of customers who border on over-zealous encouragement of others to patronize the place. Back in April 2007, David & I stopped there for dinner one night, and were less than impressed. The service was glacially slow, and nearly incompetent. While David's burger was fine, my \$28(!!) steak was absolutely horrible. I was hoping that we happened to be there on a bad night, and gave them another chance. Sadly, it was more of the same. Dinner service was absolutely horrible. 20 minutes to get our drinks, nearly an hour for food, and another 20 minutes to pay the bill. While I could understand somewhat slow service if the place was busy, we were literally the only people ordering anything other than drinks, and there were less than half-a-dozen other tables occupied the entire time. While the food was decent (we all got burgers), this was one of the worst dining service experiences that I've ever had. It looked like the biggest problem was a lack of wait staff, or that the wait staff that they had were generally incompetent. I'd like to say that the campground was a huge improvement over the dinner experience, but sadly, it was not. For \$15/night, I'd expect a campground to be one of the best, but instead this was one of, if not the, worst we've ever used. First, the tent campsites were all practically right next to the road (CA-190). Granted, CA-190 doesn't get that much traffic, but even so, the fact that the RV sites were further away from the road than the tent sites just smacks of poor layout planning. To make matters worse, the RV sites were literally within ear shot of the tent sites, and even though there are supposedly rules that established quiet hours as 10PM-6AM, at least two of the RV's were running generators all night long. To add to the misery, all of the tent sites were literally side by side and each was small & cramped, so there was not even the least bit of privacy or room to spread out. Next there was the bathroom. Yes, they had running water, however no potable water facets. Seeing as how their restaurant is literally across the road, they had to have a source of potable water, so I'm beyond puzzled why it wasn't made available to the campground. However, the biggest insult was the men's bathroom which had a single urinal which was blocked with an "out of service" sign, and then the only toilet was clogged & overflowing. So this meant that there was no men's toilet in the entire campground, and it remained that way when we departed the following morning. I ended up having to cross the road to use the restaurant's bathroom. Then there was the complete lack of darkness at night. There were no fewer than 3 different light pollution sources in the campground, which effectively meant that it was never even remotely dark at night. One was a light across the road that was pointed directly at the campground. Another were the two lamps that illuminated the PSR sign along the road, and the third were the lights pointed in numerous random directions around the bathroom. I'm afraid to think of what the place would have been like if more than just 3 of the tent sites were occupied that night. I guess I was just puzzled what the allure of the place is when there are free campgrounds less than 30 minutes away that have equal or better amenities.
This post is part 3 of the "dv-2008-10" series:
- Death Valley day #1: driving, Darwin Falls & camping
- Death Valley day #2: the Racetrack, Hunter Mtn & the boxcar cabin
- Death Valley day #3: Owens Valley
- Death Valley day #4: Warm Spring, Badwater & Wildrose
- Death Valley day #5: sand, salt & holes
- Death Valley day #6: Titus, Eureka & flying things
- Death Valley day #7: Saline Valley