August 17, 2007
Day Hike #2
On Tuesday we went to the Golden Trout Wilderness outside of Lone Pine, CA so that Timber could see (and possibly catch) her first golden trout. They really are beautiful fish. Before we went, however, we stopped by the Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop which was setup by the late Galen and Barbara Rowell. They died in a plane crash a few years ago. The one word I can use for going into their gallery is inspiring. They really got me thinking about the types of photos I want to take, different techniques I want to try, and different places I want to go. If you are in or around Bishop you should definitely check this place out. On the way to the Golden Trout Wilderness from Bishop we stopped at the Manzanar National Historic Site. It was one of the many places where the United States government put people of Japanese decent during World War II. One of the scary things about it was that most of the people put in these camps were US citizens. While these camps were not as bad as the concentration camps run by the Nazis (the US didn't systematically kill people in these camps) it is still a bruise on our history. I, like most people, think it was a mistake and hope we don't make the same mistakes again in the future. Once we got to the Golden Trout Wilderness we started out by checking out Horseshoe Meadow. There is a stream that meanders through the meadow which is a great place to spot golden trout. We spotted several of them, but they were so small and the water flow was so little that we couldn't realistically fish for them. Wookie enjoyed running free throughout the meadow. He caught wind of a marmot and the chase was on! He chased the marmot under a rock (I presume its home) and then he started digging to try to get it out. While this was happening the marmot did quite a bit of chirping to let the other marmots in the area know that there was danger nearby. When I realized what was going on I went over to where Wookie was frantically digging and barking and made him leave the marmot alone. I thought everything was under control and we headed away from the meadow with Wookie when he suddenly turned around and ran full speed back to the rock where the marmot was hiding. Timber and I yelled at him and I was about to go grab him and put him on the leash when he turned back and came back to us. After that fun we went over the the Cottonwood Lakes trail and hike that a mile or two until we reached Cottonwood Creek. Once there Timber did a little fishing for golden trout while I ran around taking pictures. It was a nice easy hike on a nice day. I think Timber was glad that she finally got to check out the Golden Trout Wilderness. I think we'll come back again some day and spend more time there.