Short trip down the East Side of the Sierras

September 22, 2016
Usually when we are near Bridgeport, we are just heading home. But this trip is going to be concentrated in the upper part of the East Side as far south as the road to Tioga Pass and June Lakes. Our first night is at the Paradise Shores RV Park next to the Bridgeport Reservoir. We will stay here a few nights and explore the surrounding area. The reservoir looks low and there is no vegetation around the edge. Very bleak. The wind is expected, but it is so cold it feels like my nose is going to fall off.  William says this is the coldest night of the trip.

     The next morning I take my coffee over to a neighboring picnic table, because of birds. I think they are starlings. They land in a large silver-leaved tree near our site, then swoop off with a clatter over our rig and then down toward the water. The evidence on our rig and our picnic table indicates that they are being successful at gathering food.

missed the starlings in my picture

     Our first side trip is to Twin Lakes. We parked at Arnett's Mono Village. Lots of activity around here mainly oriented around fishing. There is a huge RV park with decent wifi and many summer homes. We hiked for a few hours, part way to Barney's Lake and later found the start of the lakeside trail.

 

Trails are not marked the way Italian trails are. You are lucky if you find a sign that marks the trail and the descriptions of how to find the trails are not entirely clear.

After lunch we found the parking in the middle of the twin lakes and walked a while along the lakeside trail from the middle.

William walked part way up the Cattle Creek trail.

On our way back on the access road we saw quite a few kokanee salmon. We'd seen a few earlier in the creeks leading into upper twin lake. Fishing season is over in the creeks.