This is the Weird & Wonderful side of California

Oddities of nature and the stuff of human ingenuity and absurdity exist here in the Eastern Sierra just as they do the world over. The fascinating history of these weird and wonderful things is as incredible as the objects and attractions themselves. I find myself looking at these mysterious manmade and naturally occurring phenomena and wondering, “When? How? Why?”

The Eastern Sierra is often referred to as “the other side of California,” and I think these places might also make it “the weird side of California.” Along a stretch of US Highway 395 in the Eastern Sierra are some of the most curious, grotesque, mysterious, and awe-inspiring features of nature and feats of humankind.

Join me on a road trip along US-395 as I explore these fascinating weird and wonderful places.

Road Trip US-395

From southern California hop onto US-395 where it begins in Hesperia, or follow CA 14 through Mojave to get the first destination on this list. From the north hop onto US-395 anywhere from Lee Vining (gateway to Yosemite National Park on CA-120) to Lake Tahoe (from CA-89) and Reno, NV.

Some of these attractions require 4-wheel drive and high-clearance vehicles and good OHV driving skills. Some also include a bit of hiking to access the feature. Others have easy access on paved roads, with services at or nearby the attraction, such as: food, restrooms, gas, lodging, and visitor information where you can learn more details about the feature.

Travel Tip: Choose only two or three for a day trip or make your base in one of the lovely towns along the route and spend a few days exploring. Take your time and come back often to see all these weird and wonderful things in the Eastern Sierra.

Burro Schmidt Tunnel

One man with two donkeys, a few hand tools, a wheelbarrow, and some explosives, spent over 33 years singlehandedly digging a tunnel almost a half-mile long in the solid rock of Copper Mountain in the remote Mojave Desert of California. During his lifetime William “Burro” Schmidt would never fully explain his tunnel excavation project, except to say that is was a “short cut.”

He had moved to California from Rhode Island for health reasons and staked a mining claim in the Mojave Desert’s El Paso range. At that time transporting the ore from his claim to the smelter in Mojave was along a perilous mountain trail. Schmidt is reputed to have said that he would never haul his ore to the Mojave smelter “down that back trail” using his two burros.

He became obsessed with digging and completing a tunnel and disregarded mining entirely, even though he discovered potentially rich veins of gold, silver, copper, and iron during the big dig. The tunnel, however, emerged on a high ridge well above the desert floor below and is now called the “short cut to nowhere.” Schmidt never transported a single ounce of ore through the tunnel.

Today the tunnel remains intact. Although Schmidt had no formal training it is obvious that he was a quick learner and the skills he picked up from digging, often through mishap and injury to himself, produced a feat of incredible and accurate engineering.

The tunnel, Schmidt’s cabin, and surrounding land are now under the auspices of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and can be accessed after short drive along a dusty, dirt road. Take a walk through the tunnel and see the commanding view of Saltdale on the other side.

Best time to visit: Late fall to early spring (Summer temperatures can be very high.)

Fossil Falls

This geological wonder is a magnificent example of the forces of nature that shape our world. Technically it’s not a fossil and water no longer falls here in any abundance. This surreal canyon of basaltic black lava rock is now a natural work of art beautifully sculpted by eons of rushing water from a prehistoric age.

The chasm is almost unnoticeable in the flat lands of the valley floor until you get quite near to it, then it unfurls below you in folds of glossy, black rock that is both beautiful and strange. The rock is smooth and shiny and distinctly different from the surrounding landscape. It is stark evidence of a time when the valley was wetter, and of the inevitability of change.

Early inhabitants lived along the banks of this ancient river, where artifacts and rock art indicate a viable hunter-gatherer culture existed here some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago.

A trip to Fossil Falls is less than a mile off Highway 395 and it’s a great spot to stop to stretch your legs or have a picnic.

I love it for an overnight camping trip. Spend a little time here. It will expand your view and understanding of this remarkable valley.

Best time to visit: Early Spring – the wildflower bloom here can be wonderful.

Charcoal Kilns

This is another testament to human ingenuity and not as outlandish as some of the others on this list, but nonetheless quite outstanding.

High in the Inyo Mountains of the Eastern Sierra near Lone Pine is Cerro Gordo, once a prosperous silver and lead mine. In just 10-years from the 1860s to 1870s about $20 million dollars-worth of silver and lead bullion was shipped from Cerro Gordo. It holds the distinction of being the most prosperous mine for those metals in California history.
Soon into its development as a booming mining operation, lumber in the nearby mountains was denuded and a quality fuel for the smelters was urgently needed from elsewhere. Like with so many mines of the day, charcoal kilns were used to ‘cook’ wood into charcoal for use in smelting and purifying precious metals and produce ingots.

The logistics of Cerro Gordo were tricky, but not insurmountable. Charcoal kilns were built along the shores of the lake and nearby Cottonwood creek where, at that time, wood and water were abundant. Good fireclay was present in the region too and, whereas most kilns of the day were built using bricks or stone, these were built from clay bricks and covered with plaster.

Cottonwood trees were cut, ‘cooked’, and transported across the lake on steamboats to the town of Keeler and thereafter hauled up the mountain by horses and mules to the smelters at Cerro Gordo. The valuable bullion was brought back down the mountain, ferried across the lake on the same steamboats, the “Bessie Brady” and “Mollie Stevens,” to Cartago where it was shipped onward to Los Angeles.

Where Highway 395 runs west of the old shoreline of the now dry Owens Lake, is a dirt road leading to the historical landmark that is the Cottonwood Charcoal Kilns. These 25-foot wide structures are an eerie reminder of an economic and environmental era that is now vastly different in the region.

Best time to visit: Year-round – (Summer can be very hot.)

Tuttle Creek Ashram

The mountains have long been considered spiritual destinations for people seeking solitude and enlightenment. To climb lofty peaks and be closer to the heavens or view the world from an ‘otherworldly’ perspective is a goal to which many have ascended.

Buddhist monasteries perched high in the mountains of China and temples that dot the foothills and ice-clad peaks of the Himalayas are numerous. For pilgrims seeking something here in the USA, the Sierra Nevada holds a one such special, spiritual place.

The Tuttle Creek Ashram is tucked high into the mountains above Lone Pine at 8,000 feet above sea level. In 1930 a couple, Franklin Wolff and his wife Sherifa – both philosophers, mystics and writers – began construction on the 2,000 square foot stone building designed in the shape of a balanced cross to symbolize the principles of equilibrium.

In the ensuing years the ashram has been vandalized, all-but abandoned, almost dynamited to rubble, and finally evaluated as historically significant and nominated for recognition in the National Register of Historic Places. It is now under the jurisdiction of the US Forest Service.

The location of the ashram was specifically chosen to be near the highest point in the contiguous USA, Mt. Whitney, as the couple believed the spiritual point of a country to be near its highest elevation.

Best time to visit: Late spring to early fall (Trail may be impassable due to snow in winter.)

Coyote Teeth Dentures

What would you do if you were living a meager life in the early 1900s in a remote mountain community and had lost all your teeth? Perhaps you’d count your pennies and go see a local dentist. Perhaps the closest dentist is in a town far away and you can’t afford the time or expense.

A gruesome artifact, now on display in the Eastern California Museum in Independence, seems to tell the story of a man who, in about 1930, found himself in this predicament. What he did is not just grotesque, but rather ironic as well.

He fashioned a set of dentures from the teeth of a dead coyote!

He made the now famous Coyote Dentures by melting celluloid from toothbrush handles, molding the mixture to the shape of his gums, then pressing the yellowed coyote teeth into the cast.

Perhaps he wasn’t poor just miserly, but he was definitely macabre.

Best time to visit: Year-round (Check museum for hours of operation)

Two-Headed Lamb

The birth of Siamese twins to farm animals is not exceptionally rare, but it is always rather shocking.

Sometime around 1940, on a local farm northwest of Bishop, Siamese twin lambs were born. The conjoined twins were born joined at the neck and, although they are known as “the two-headed lamb” or “the two-faced lamb,” they each actually have a complete body too.

According to the daughter of Clifford Jones, who lived on the farm since a child, the lambs lived for a short time and after their death he stuffed the lambs for posterity. They are now on display at Laws Railroad Museum & Historical Site along with a multitude of other intriguing artifacts of the weird and wild west.

Best time to visit:Year-round (Check museum for hours of operation)

Gravity Hill

There is a particular spot on a quiet, remote road just west of Bishop where you will not experience the effect of gravity quite like you will anywhere else. In fact it should be called “Un-Gravity Hill.”

I’m a skeptic so I had to try this myself. I asked around and was grudgingly given vague directions to a country lane just off CA-168 West near Cerro Coso college. After slowly driving back and forth along the road a few times I could sense where gravity seemed to be misbehaving.

At a certain point in the road where it appeared I was heading uphill, I stopped the car, placed it in neutral, took my foot off the brake, and it slowly began to move forward, up the hill! Wait. What? At first it just crept forward, then it gained speed. Going uphill! No?! Then gravity got a grip on the crazy situation, the car slowed and finally came to a stop. Whoa!

It is an optical illusion of the freakiest kind. How fast and far you travel will depend on your starting point and the weight and rolling resistance of your vehicle. You might get to the crest of the hill or you might not. It all depends on how strong the force is that day.

May the force be with you!

Best time to visit: Spring to Fall (Snow and icy conditions in winter may put a damper on the effects of un-gravity.)

Pet Cemetery

This is a wildly wonderful place where hundreds of beloved pets are buried. Here it is just possible that their eternal spirits are running along the trails, jumping in the streams, or stalking through the bushes that they so loved when they lived here.

The area is hauntingly beautiful and the feeling of love is palpable and a sensation of enduring loyalty is ubiquitous. The love and gratitude displayed by the care with which this area is used and maintained makes it clear that these well-loved animals are deeply missed. Many gravesites show evidence of frequent visitation. Fresh cut flowers are a strange and colorful sight in this otherwise dusky desert. There are beautifully carved crosses and elaborate gravestones with sweet epitaphs and heartfelt remembrances. The sites are adorned with toys, collars, leads, and bowls so an energetic spirit can play exuberantly and quench its thirst.

Tread lightly on the paths that run across the grounds where our best friends are laid to rest. Perhaps here they now run unencumbered for eternity. Look for them. They are there.

Best time to visit: Spring or Fall (Summer can be very hot and winter may blanket the area in snow.)

Wagon Wheel Ruts Carved in Rock

Mining was big business in California 100 years ago and here in the Eastern Sierra it was a tough business. This landscape with its craggy crests and rocky ridges presented monumental challenges for transporting goods and lumber between the settlements, mines, and mills. One of the biggest transportation challenges in the region was going up or down the Sherwin grade between the Owens Valley and Long Valley.

James Sherwin for whom this ridge is named was an industrious man. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and moved to the valley around 1866. In 1870 he built the first of a few of roads up this 3,000-foot-high escarpment primarily to move huge shipments of lumber from the mill at Lower Rock Creek to Round Valley. The only way to move these loads was in massive wagons weighing many tons.

Those hardy pack animals, the magnificent mule, which are still used today in the rugged backcountry, were teamed up in trains of 20 mules to haul huge wagonloads up and down the mountains.

The proof of their labor and the intrepid packers who drove the teams along the trails has been permanently etched into the rock of the Sherwin Plateau north of Bishop. Deep ruts were slowly carved into this soft rock, known as Bishop Tuff. The relics of this old road now appear incongruous with the wild surroundings of the mountain slopes and the modern US highway 395 that weaves its way up this steep escarpment.

There are several good examples of these original roads still discernible on the hillside. If you stand in the remnants of these old ruts and listen quietly, you might hear the braying of the mules and creaking of the wheels as if carried on the wind from a century ago.

BTW. This is one of my favorite mountain bike trails. Check out some great winter mountain bike rides here.

Best time to visit: Spring through Fall (Snow and ice may make conditions unfavorable.)

Crowley Lake Columns

An exceptional set of circumstances due to an artificially created reservoir near Mammoth Lakes has resulted in exposing a fascinating and unique natural feature that was obscured for thousands of years under the earth. The Crowley Lake Columns were slowly unmasked by the powerful waves of the lake pummeling the softer rock of the cliffs. Researchers have only recently begun to study this unique natural phenomenon and one scientist said, “From the very first moment I laid eyes on this weird and wondrous place a year ago, I was smitten. It made me go back to school to get a master’s degree in geology.”

According to a recent study, researchers from UC Berkeley have determined, “that the columns were created by cold water percolating down into — and steam rising up out of — hot volcanic ash spewed by a cataclysmic explosion 760,000 years ago.”

Access to the pillars is by boat, on foot, or 4×4 vehicle and then only in the warmer months of the year when lake is not frozen, and the ground not covered in snow. Once there, though, it almost appears as if an alien life form is growing out of the sand and creating a dark labyrinth into which one might just disappear … forever.

Best time to visit: Summer – Columns can be under snow in winter or underwater periodically throughout the year. Check in at a local information center for details.

Devils Postpile

About 100,000 years ago a lava vent began spewing hot, basaltic lava. In an area known today as Reds Meadow Valley, just west of Mammoth Mountain, this iron- and magnesium-rich molten rock flowed down the valley until it reached a natural dam. The dam, most likely a glacial moraine produced by a receding glacier from a previous ice age, trapped the liquid lava and created a huge lava lake, at least 400 feet deep in some places. Slowly and over time, the molten rock cooled and hardened and, as it did so, it contracted and began to crack.

As often happens in nature, but is seldom seen on such a dramatic scale, the cracks appeared in uniform formations. Colossal columns of rock took on geometric shapes to create near symmetrical hexagons and polygons. For millennia much of this formation was underground, but erosion eventually exposed major portions of this columnar basalt. Repeated cycles of freezing and thawing broke columns apart. Earthquakes shook and knocked columns and pieces down. A river roared down this valley and washed pieces away. But the greatest forces that excavated, scoured, and polished these beautifully formed pillars were glaciers from subsequent ice ages.

Huge columns of geometrically shaped basaltic rock create an enormous formation that seems improbable in this organic, natural landscape. A trail skirts the base of the buttress and climbs up a slightly irregular stairway of polished stone where the evidence of the glacial scouring and polishing is so startling that it makes one feel as if one has entered the hallway of a grand mansion. Nature is wonderful.

Today the formation is protected within the Devils Postpile National Monument.

Best time to visit: Summer – a day trip into this valley is by bus from the Main Lodge at Mammoth Mountain. Private vehicles are allowed with a camping reservation.

Mono Lake

Mono Lake (pronounced Moh-no) is geographically, geologically, and historically unique and wonderful. It is also surreal and ethereal. This desert lake lies in a closed basin, which allows no outflow of water, resulting in high levels of salt in the water. Of its many fascinating features, none are stranger than the Tufa Towers that appear to rise out of the water in unearthly formations. These tufa towers are calcium carbonate deposits which form, under the lake’s surface, as freshwater springs bubble up into this excessively salty and alkaline lake.

These towers were only exposed recently, geologically speaking, between 80- and 50-years ago when the lake lost almost half its depth due to the creation of an aqueduct that diverts water to Los Angeles and southern California, some 300 miles south. As the lake level receded the sensitive ecosystems began to crumble and the water salinity increased dramatically.

Although fish do not survive in this water the lake is home to a species of brine shrimp, Artemia monica, found nowhere else the world. They are dormant in winter, but come spring up to 6 trillion brine shrimp surface and trillions more alkali flies hatch. These have been prime source of food for millions of migratory birds, like the California Gull, which is famous for its tactic of running through a raft of flies and scooping them up like winged, snapping bulldozers. More than 80 species of migratory birds’ flock and breed on these shores.

The lake in its present form was probably created by the Long Valley eruption some 760,000 years ago, but it is thought that it may also be a remnant of a larger, older lake that covered much of Nevada and Utah and is 1 million years old now, one of the oldest lakes in north America.

The lake is a wonderful sight to behold from US-395 year-round, and especially from the Mono Lake Vista point near Conway Summit. The highway is plowed in the winter, but may close periodically during the season.

Best time to visit: Late spring to early fall – kayaking in summer among the tufu towers is weirdly wonderful. The Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Center is closed in winter.

Upside-Down House

An exhibit at the Mono Basin History Museum in Lee Vining is a weirdly wonderful exhibit. What’s even more wonderful is the story of the artist who created it.

Nellie Bly O’Bryan (nee Baker) was a woman of talent and courage. Born and raised in Oklahoma Territories in the late 1890s (her exact date of birth has never been confirmed), Nellie arrived in Hollywood in 1917. Among her many accomplishments there were, California’s first female licensed motion-picture projectionist, and, upon being discovered and mentored by Charlie Chaplin, she became a silent film star appearing in over a dozen movies in as about many years.

About 1935 she moved to Mono County where she hand-built her own cabin, opened a resort at Lundy Lake, and became California’s first licensed female wilderness guide.

Inspired by a children’s book, Upside Down Land, Nellie built the Upside-Down House north of Lee Vining as a local tourist attraction in 1956. It was said to be the first ever “manmade” (woman made?) tourist attraction in Mono County. After her death in 1984 the house fell into disrepair and in 2000 it was rescued, moved, and restored and now features prominently among the wonderful collection of artifacts at the Mono Basin History Museum in Lee Vining.

And, oh, she was a licensed electrician too. More about Nellie’s life and works can be found in the museum’s indoor exhibit area.

Best time to visit: Memorial Day weekend through October – the museum is closed in winter.

More Weird and Wonderful Sights in the Eastern Sierra

Yep. There are many more strange and interesting attractions out there in this weird, wild, and wonderful world of ours.

Stop in at one of the region’s information centers and chat with the staff. These folks are friendly and knowledgeable and can offer maps, directions, and suggestions about other weird and wonderful sights.

Read about the Museums and Information Centers in the Eastern Sierra in this related post.