Coyote Flat

It’s 6 am. You beat the sunrise just as the sky melts into a bleeding orange color and the last fleeting stars flicker out as the sun stretches over the morning sky. Coffee is warm, the Jeep is packed and prepared—still somewhat dusty from the last trip—and your fingertips are chilled for the first time all summer. It’s the end of August, and it’s a 6 am departure from the driveway to make it to Bishop, California on time for lunch before the 20 mile trek back into the backcountry of Inyo National Forest.

By the time you get to Adelanto at the top of the Cajon Pass, temperatures reach an easy 90 degrees by 7 am, and the alpine air is calling your name in an escape. Breakfast was devoured from a McDonalds bag, and highway 395 stretches on for miles into the deserted, untouched, unknown.

Kramer Junction, Pearsonville, Olancha, Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine, and finally…Bishop. 283 miles from our starting point within 5 hours of traveling at 65 miles per hour so the radiator doesn’t overheat and kill the ac. And that was just the beginning. The real driving came from the 20 mile off-road trail that started at the base of Bishop, and stared dauntingly at the ice capped peaks of the Eastern Sierras.

We started the trail by airing down the tires of the Jeep to 20 psi. While I waited and watched my boyfriend and our buddy air each tire down individually, I couldn’t help but notice the dark, foreboding clouds that clung to the distant peaks of our destination. I then thought I didn’t bring enough warm clothes even though it was the middle of August, and I certainly didn’t bring anything remotely waterproof. By the time we were halfway up the first 5 miles of the incline, a gentleman on an ATV drove down and stopped at our rolled down window.

“There’s a hail storm up there right now,” He said with a faint smile. “Hope you brought something sturdy!”

And with that, he left in a puff of dust. My boyfriend and I looked at each other, gave one another a let’s make this happen smile, he gave the Jeep some throttle and we continued climbing.

We reached the first level of elevation, where the ground somewhat flattened out, and it looked more alpine and less desert. Cell service dropped immediately, the boys resulted in using handheld radios for communication, and our buddy in front called out for a water crossing.

Once the elevation reached above the desert, Coyote Flat really lived up to its hidden hype. Miles of stretched out, green, wildflower speckled valley rolled out in front of us as small creeks and streams carved their ways down the mountains, into the valley, and down to Bishop below; all from melting ice packs and snow from the pervious winter. Two hours of winding through valley hills, pine trees, and thick rock gardens, we finally reached our first destination for night one.

Temperatures dropped into the chilled 40s, and layers were added as the sun dropped under the massive hillside behind us. Ancient looking, untouched by man pine trees stretched out from the ground and surrounded us protectively. Though no fires were allowed this season, a manmade, charred rock firepit sat in the middle of the campground that was later used as an obstacle course for our friends RC off-roading car.

The drink of choice for the night was from the Stone Brewing IPA Mixed pack, Tangerine Express IPA. This pared decently with the two boxes of Stouffers pastas we mixed together, chicken alfredo and chicken pesto, on our two burner Coleman stove in a cast iron skillet. Before we left for the trip, we bought a large rotisserie chicken and took the meat from the bones and placed it in a bag to add to our meals, as well as lunchmeat turkey and salami. Granted, I will say the one thing we failed at was the lack of fiber and vegetables within this trip, as by the last day pasta felt real heavy going down and I was craving something light and chlorophyllic.

One of the best things we have as part of our set up is a heated blanket laid down over the thin mattress of the Front Runner rooftop tent. This plugs into one of the two Jackery portable batteries that was charged before we left. It runs up to 10 levels, and because I fell asleep in my boyfriends thick wool flannel, we only left it on level 2.

Day two was greeted with coffee from boiling water in a pan, transferring it to the French press, adding three scoops of Seattle’s Best dark roast (which was determined to be too light, and we upped our game to eight scoops the following nights and made it nice and dark), and vanilla creamer. The sun came up early, and showed off all the glistening dew from the chilled nighttime, and that was my queue to climb out of the tent. Breakfast consisted of eggs with chicken, salami, and American cheese, all seasoned with Buttery Steakhouse from Kinders. When early morning turned into mid morning it was time to swap out the flannel and boots for shorts and a t-shirt as the sun beat down at 10,000 feet. Breakfast was finished, and the activities began! A plastic baseball bat and a large whiffle ball was tossed and whacked between the three of us for two hours or so, and our buddy broke out his RC car and rolled off a few rocks and logs before we finally heard the radio go off from our third friend saying he was only a few miles away.

The majority of day two consisted of plenty of driving and exploring. Hunters drove by, brandishing their expensive archery used to hunt bucks, to which our friends, as well as us, thought was impressive. Doe were spotted a few times, the first time one momma had two babies with her as they wobbled across the dirt roads. The main goal for the day was to get back to Funnel Lake; a tiny lake created from snow runoff, and difficult to get back to due to all the rocks and hills. But, we made it back there with ease due to the nature of our vehicles. We contemplated staying the night at Funnel Lake, but decided not to because we felt we were encroaching on two other camp groups that were already there and set up. We did, however, stop there for lunch, dropped the tailgate of our friends 2022 Jeep Gladiator Rubicon, and with the turkey lunchmeat, cheese, and a little mayo, made ourselves some tortilla wraps and Tostitos chips from one of the boys.

The second campsite we found was right off the main dirt road, on a slight hillside that backed up into some pine trees. My boyfriend managed to prop the Jeep up on a medium sized rock to keep us level. While the first sight was tucked down low within the trees, this site was perched up high on a hillside, with the trees behind us. This view shows off the unconquered, desolate peaks of the Eastern Sierras, and all the unknown they had. Ice was packed into the sun-hidden crevices from the previous winters, probably never to melt.

As we got settled, the wind picked up slightly, and blew the clouds out, reveling a sun dimming sky as the distant clouds turned an off pink hue. My boyfriend popped the rooftop tent as I gathered our warm clothes, and for the first time we had to put beanies on. Dinner was made—same meal as last night—and the drink of choice was Blue Moon Wit, which matched the irony of the moonless skies. I climbed into bed around 8:30 pm, and slowly fell asleep to the boys’ laughter and nostalgic storytelling. It was only a half hour later I was awoken by my boyfriend shouting my name, only it had a smile clung to the tone of it. They shut the lights off a few minutes before, and needed my attention for reasons I didn’t know. I climbed out of the tent reluctantly, as I was only in sleeping shorts and a t-shirt, but my boyfriend gave me his flannel and told me to look up.

Never. Ever. Have I seen a sky that looked like that. A Milky Way arm stretched out southwest, curving over the sharp, jagged peaks of the pitch black mountains. Stars, must have been billions of them, were splattered against the black of the night. And movement. Constant, never ending satellite movement that streaked across the sky, moving thousands of miles an hour in mere seconds. Shootings stars bolted off as we made wishes, and lightning from those far off clouds lit up the jagged peaks of the mountains. It was sky you would only see 20 miles away from anything. Away from any highway, from any street, car window, town, city, suburb, or paved campsite. It was a sky given to those who are willing to submerse themselves into what the world truly has to offer; to those who are wild again.

Day three rolled around faster than expected, and gifted us with more exploration. The places we visited on day three were my favorite places so far. Meadows. So many lush, green meadows with running creeks that split the ground down the middle for snow runoff to find its way down. I wanted to live there. I wanted to die there. It was so peaceful, and serene, and green. No place I’ve ever seen in Southern California had been able to compare to the meadows we found along the back western side of Coyote Flat. And if you watched the video all the way through, yes, I put the vertebra back in the water!

Although that meadowed area was stunning, the ground there was slightly too squishy for us to camp, as one of our buddies who had a ground tent would have been sleeping in the mud. We then went exploring in the opposite direction of the meadows and reached a dead end of a trail that came to a small campsite that showed off the highway 395 gap between Bishop and Big Pine. While that campsite was beautiful as well, the ground was nowhere near flat, so we opted to go back to our night two campground, and settled in once again. One of the boys made burgers and spicy wieners while we cooked pasta again and had Stone IPAs for night three. This time, I decided to stay up a little later and waited for the boys to turn the lights off so we could see the stars again. It never got old. It will never get old. We counted satellites, and made wishes on those because shooting stars decided not to make an appearance that night.

Day four was goodbye. We got up, made coffee and breakfast slowly, taking our sweet time to truly cherish where we were and what it offered. While we started on the same trail down, we decided to take a detour to the trail up and around the mountains on the east side. This trail dropped us down into Big Pine rather than Bishop. It took roughly around 2.5 hours to get into town from Coyote Flat; a 6,000 foot elevation change with some very tilty, sketchy sections that required some spotting. But the view of Big Pine from that perspective helped my patience as I have never seen the town from that view. As we climbed down the trails, the desert slowly crept back up as thousands of little yellow flowers dotted the sandy hillsides, and the pines shrunk down into drought resistant shrubs. Rabbitbrush, or Chrysothamnus, was found along the east facing mountain sides as we trekked down the trail, lighting up the dirt in a bright yellow.

We made it down to Big Pine eventually, where we finally got service back and our phones blew up with notifications. Reluctantly, I checked them, dismissed the unimportant ones, and replied to my family telling them I was alive and did not get eaten by a bear. We aired up the tires while I sent a few sneak peak photos and videos to my family and a few friends. The drive back home was quiet as we reminisced on the beauty and wonders that was Coyote Flat, wondering when we would go back again.

If you’d like to see videos of this adventure, go check out Mountain Road Adventure’s YouTube channel as there are multiple episodes on this trip captured cinematographically beautifully.

I hope you enjoyed!

Cheers,

Sara :)