I love Inyo and Mono Counties. I worked in Independence on murder cases years ago when the defendants were found guilty and got the death sentence. Rose Bird (rip) reversed on appeal. Been to Death Valley many times and Scotty’s Mansion (not really his mansion, but another story there).
I only find one thing incorrect in your profile page. Mt. Whitney was not the tallest mountain in the West. Go north about ten miles and you will find White Mountain. Some bureaucratic idiots were shoveling dirt and rocks off of White Mountain to make Mt. Whitney the taller of the two. “Why?” you might ask. Who the heck knows.
Met a nice lady a little north of Independence (County Seat in Inyo). She was there for 80 or 90 years. She wouldn’t sell her water rights, along with about 20 other families, to LA in the early days of So.Cal. She still had a two-inch pipe with the most fabulous water in her home from a stream that came off a mountain. And it was all for free, except the usual maintenance of old pipes.
Do you know the story about the man who walked through Death Valley in the summer months and FROZE to death? Quite an interesting place.
I’ve lived in Montana for 8 years now, and though I love the beauty of the place, there are things I miss about the desert of So Cal — except for the illeals and the liberals.
I really appreciate your comments, but it is just an old rumor that White Mtn. Peak, 14,242’, is actually higher than Mt. Whitney. It has been a running gag around here for years. It would take a lot of shoveling to get that much dirt and rocks off of White Mountain (pictured below) which is actually 70 miles north of Whitney in another mountain range.
14,496' Mt. Whitney in the High Sierra is not only the highest mountain in the West, but the highest in the United States outside of Alaska.
