Although this trip had been on the official WAYALIFE Run Schedule since the beginning of the year, getting it to happen took a lot more effort than I would have preferred and for that matter, it almost didn't happen at all. Coming off the heels of King of the Hammers, we still had 3 Jeeps that were down and for a while, I just didn't think we'd be able to get one fixed in time. But, as luck would have it, our good friend Tony sent me a message on the Thursday before and asked if it was safe to assume the trip was cancelled. This of course was the kick I had been needing to just figure things out and make it happen and, that's exactly what I did. The crazy thing is, even with the run being announced just a little more than a day before the trip, we still managed to get a total of 9 Jeeps to come out.
For our purposes, the 2015 WAYALIFE Presidents Day Weekend run would be one that explored the Inyo Mountains just east of the town of Lone Pine. Using the Dow Villa Hotel as our base camp, we spent the first part of our Saturday up in the hills digging for the fossil remains of Ammonites, extinct marine invertebrates that lived in an ancient sea over 235 million years ago. From there, we descended into the depths of the earth as we drove a 1/4 mile into the Reward Mine and then finished the day with a visit to the old WWII Manzanar Japanese Interment Camp. On Sunday, we climbed our way up and over 9,000 feet to explore the old Swansea Salt Tram ruins before heading out to another fossil bed to dig for ancient shark teeth.
Below are some photo highlights from our trip and I hope you enjoy them.
Moby loaded up and ready to go at the crack of dawn.
Meeting up with Mike and his family before starting our trek down to Lone Pine.
There was a killer sunrise for us that morning.
Time to head out into the fiery glow.
The Sierra Nevada Mountains looking as picture perfect as ever.
Making a quick stop to get out and stretch along the way.
Meeting up with the gang down at the Lone Pine Visitor Center.
Of course, it was good to have Ken join us for this run and in his brand new and bone stock Amped colored Rubicon. For those of you who don't know, Ken had been out of commission for quite some time due to a wreck he was involved in almost a year ago.
After doing some light wheeling up into the hills, we arrived at our first destination of the day.
Time to start digging!
Taking a break to admire our Jeeps from the fossil beds.
And to take in the awesome views across the Owens Valley and Sierra Nevada Mountains beyond.
After a lot of hard work, here are some of the specimens we found.
These two are probably the best examples of Ammonite fossils we found.
With everyone exhausted from digging, we decided to head out to our next destination of the day.
Here at last and ready to plunge into the depths of the earth!
Here we go!
And here we are - 1/4 miles down into the depths of the earth!
Time to do some more exploring on foot.
Amazingly, there's plenty of room down here to get all our Jeeps turned around. Granted, it does take a little dancing around each other but otherwise, it's no problem to do.
Before calling it a day, we decided to make a final stop over at the old WWII Japanese Interment Camp known as Manzanar. Meaning "apple orchard" in Spanish, this otherwise picturesque location at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was one of ten camp where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were tragically incarcerated during the war. Unfortunately, we arrived a bit too late in the day and could only do the auto tour. Here we are parked in front of a restored barrack.
Paying our respects at the old cemetery.
Looking to the east, you can see how much the Sierra's shadow out you daylight.
Back at our basecamp, it was time for some Honey!
To all our friends old and new - CHEERS!!
More pics below...
For our purposes, the 2015 WAYALIFE Presidents Day Weekend run would be one that explored the Inyo Mountains just east of the town of Lone Pine. Using the Dow Villa Hotel as our base camp, we spent the first part of our Saturday up in the hills digging for the fossil remains of Ammonites, extinct marine invertebrates that lived in an ancient sea over 235 million years ago. From there, we descended into the depths of the earth as we drove a 1/4 mile into the Reward Mine and then finished the day with a visit to the old WWII Manzanar Japanese Interment Camp. On Sunday, we climbed our way up and over 9,000 feet to explore the old Swansea Salt Tram ruins before heading out to another fossil bed to dig for ancient shark teeth.
Below are some photo highlights from our trip and I hope you enjoy them.
Moby loaded up and ready to go at the crack of dawn.
Meeting up with Mike and his family before starting our trek down to Lone Pine.
There was a killer sunrise for us that morning.
Time to head out into the fiery glow.
The Sierra Nevada Mountains looking as picture perfect as ever.
Making a quick stop to get out and stretch along the way.
Meeting up with the gang down at the Lone Pine Visitor Center.
Of course, it was good to have Ken join us for this run and in his brand new and bone stock Amped colored Rubicon. For those of you who don't know, Ken had been out of commission for quite some time due to a wreck he was involved in almost a year ago.
After doing some light wheeling up into the hills, we arrived at our first destination of the day.
Time to start digging!
Taking a break to admire our Jeeps from the fossil beds.
And to take in the awesome views across the Owens Valley and Sierra Nevada Mountains beyond.
After a lot of hard work, here are some of the specimens we found.
These two are probably the best examples of Ammonite fossils we found.
With everyone exhausted from digging, we decided to head out to our next destination of the day.
Here at last and ready to plunge into the depths of the earth!
Here we go!
And here we are - 1/4 miles down into the depths of the earth!
Time to do some more exploring on foot.
Amazingly, there's plenty of room down here to get all our Jeeps turned around. Granted, it does take a little dancing around each other but otherwise, it's no problem to do.
Before calling it a day, we decided to make a final stop over at the old WWII Japanese Interment Camp known as Manzanar. Meaning "apple orchard" in Spanish, this otherwise picturesque location at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was one of ten camp where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were tragically incarcerated during the war. Unfortunately, we arrived a bit too late in the day and could only do the auto tour. Here we are parked in front of a restored barrack.
Paying our respects at the old cemetery.
Looking to the east, you can see how much the Sierra's shadow out you daylight.
Back at our basecamp, it was time for some Honey!
To all our friends old and new - CHEERS!!
More pics below...
