That time I decided to go off roading

stevenjmagner (55)in #photography • 8 years ago

Visiting Bishop, June Lake, Convict Lake, Mono Lake and Conway Ranch was both frightening and rewarding. When I set out on Friday afternoon I met up with a photographer in Bishop to join me on my 395 adventure. This was my second straight weekend back but first time north of Alabama Hills. I had done some previous research about the area but wanted to stay close to Bishop on the first night to capture the Milky Way. I had my eyes set on finding some petroglyphs but by the time we got together it was too late to go hunting in the dark so we settled on driving towards Convict Lake area to find some abandoned houses and other beautiful comps.

After getting skunked for hours with wispy clouds which haunted our night sky for hours it finally let up and we decided to drive into the valley a bit more to see what we could find. We had passed the Green Church off of 395 and decided to take Benton Crossing Road to see what else was out there. What found us I will not soon forget.

About 4 miles into driving and seeing pure darkness and little else I decided to turn my 2wd car around in a turn out. Bad move. The ground was frozen over and because of the high amount of rain we have been having in California, over saturated. Slowing down to make the turn my two front tires submerged into the ground and I was stuck spinning mud for the next 4 hours. Geico refused to send someone out because I was “off roading”, and over those 4 hours 2 cars passed by. 1 passerby did nothing but stare at me as I waved my arms from the side of the road, and another pickup which happened to have all the equipment to remove me from the sunken mud was kind enough to stop and pull us out.
This would be the first time I was to be towed this weekend…