Celebrating California’s Highway 395
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 04.23.07 | 12:24 PM ET
Photo by When it comes to scenic California roads, coastal Highway 1 gets most of the attention, but there’s another route equally worthy of adoration: Highway 395. It winds along the Eastern Sierra, delivering anglers to lakes and rivers, skiers to the slopes of Mammoth, and hikers and climbers to the lower 48 states’ tallest mountain, Mt. Whitney. I’ve always loved driving the highway, especially in winter, when the Sierra is blanketed in snow. So I was jazzed to see it featured prominently in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Staff writer Hugo Martin highlights points of interest along the highway, from the Alabama Hills, where countless Westerns have been filmed, to Bodie Ghost Town.
He writes:
Route 395 is our mother road. Its two-lane panoramas of the Eastern Sierra—especially from Lone Pine to Mono Lake—are an invitation to shift into a simpler time. The miles are marked by a beef jerky shack, a Dutch-style bakery, a herd of grazing elk, a courthouse that dates to the Civil War and a snowcapped mountain range born in the Jurassic.
Among the places Martin notes are Lone Pine’s Dow Villa Hotel—a great place to stay before or after backpacking trips in the area—and Owens River.
One place Martin didn’t include is the Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, which showcases the world-class work of the late wilderness photographer Galen Rowell. For me, it’s must-see when passing through town.
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
