Playing Hooky At Jet Canyon

At noon yesterday, my wife Connie, the requisite high school teacher, finally finished all the grading for her English classes, and entered her student’s grades into the computer at school, so the report cards could finally be printed out and mailed. This, after school was over last Friday.

Then we went and played hooky. I already had the car gassed up and loaded with finger foods and goodies (which neither of us are allowed to have on our diets).

Quickly leaving our little town, we took the highway North from Ridgecrest and Inyokern, on the 395. After a few detours to little places we had always spied off the side of the road, but never had time to stop and see, (Lava Falls, and the Owens Valley River fishing dock) we turned right at the town of Olancia onto the 190 highway, which lead East into the Inyo Mountains, North of China Lake Navy Air Weapons Station.

The valley we had been driving on is between the high Sierra Mountains with Mount Whitney, and a totally different kind of mountain. The Sierra Mountains are granite, and alive with pine forests and lakes, while the Inyo Mountians and all the mountains East to Death Valley, are made of ancient magma, which was hot lava pushed suddenly into the open, forming awesome, but totally barren mountain ranges.

It was spectacular, to say the least. As we drove higher and higher, we saw the vistas, and the beauty of the flowering sage and desert scrub oaks growing where blown soil had collected among fingers of ancient lava sticking up from the desert. That whole land is crazy-tilted in all directions, and the place we were at is a good 4,000 feet above the surrounding desert valleys.

As we followed the little two-lane highway, past ghost towns and abandoned Talc and Silver mines, where there were once thriving communities nine decades ago, we came to the very eastern end of the high mesa we were on. There on the side of the road a bit North of Darwin, was a deep, and awesome canyon where the lava split apart, and you could see all the way down to the miles-distant desert valley floor, and the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley beyond.

We stopped and got some digital pictures of that great divide. Just as we were getting back into the car, we saw a Navy F-18A come sweeping down from the hills to our left, and sort of pausing right in front of us, it descended into the canyon while lazily rolling on its side. Soon, it was out of sight, but we heard its afterburners echoing in the distant valley like rolling thunder.

Of course the jet didn’t pause before us. It must have been going about 5 or 600 miles an hour as it dove into the deep canyon, but to our perception, it just hung there, while we tried to grasp what we were seeing, a hundred feet in front of us and slightly below the hill we were standing on. It was gone before we could raise a camera to record it.

I will never forget that glorious sight! I was instantly jealous of those Navy pilots, off some nameless carrier, daily flying out to the weapons range below us. I am sure they all know of this canyon and its wonderful thrill, but I am not sure if they tell their flight captain what they are doing. The jet has to be on its side, going down that divide. The canyon walls are way too close together for it to fly through upright.

It took us a couple of hours to drive down the side of the lava mountain mesa to Panamint Springs, where we stopped and had dinner (Her, shrimp salad. Me, home made chili). We ate outside on the patio, cooled by the late afternoon breeze, while we fed tiny sparrows that came on our table for cracker and bread scraps. Taking in the sights of the distant mountains of Death Valley National Park, we marveled at the green of that oasis in the open desert, and pondered the cost of keeping it supplied in fuel oil, food and water. Gas was $3.50 a gallon there.

Then we continued on the arrow-straight 190 East across the utterly flat valley floor. We than took the turn off to distant Trona and home to Ridgecrest. Along the way we made a few more detours. One for the ghost town named Ballarat, East across a dry lake bed, and another for the gold strip mine at the foot of the mighty Funeral Mountains, which were starting to turn red and pink in the late afternoon sun.

It was evening as we passed Trona, where there was a busy chemical plant, and many abandoned or gone-to-seed homes, shops and gas stations. The darkening sky above was clear with a few firey neon red clouds, as we turned West toward the comfort of home and our small collection of cats and a kitten.

Altogether, a very enjoyable hooky time for us! The Mojave Desert is an awesome place to explore, with great beauty and mysteries. It was way past time we paid it a small visit. Next time, we promised ourselves a visit to Keeler along the now empty Owens Lake, -and to Darwin, which is at the end of a long dirt road, but which the map says still has an active elementary school and many stores.

Regards,
Roger