Passing the turn off for the Tioga Pass Steps were retraced for the first time on this trip. Shortly after passing Mono Lake we turned off the highway onto a lesser road. More turns and the roads became progressively more informal until we ended on a dirt road with a warning that it would be rough and take 30 minutes to complete the 10 miles to Brodie. Rough it certainly was; in fact the only smooth bits were the occasional cattle grids. This proved painful for my coffee infused bladder but hopefully I’ll get over it! Brodie is the archetypal ghost town. It developed on the back of the 1849 gold rush and its heyday was in the 1870s when it boasted a population of 8,000, over 20 saloons and a reputation for being one of the most lawless towns in California.
By the 1930’s it was well into decline and it was abandoned in the 1960s. Since then it has been made into a State Park and is kept as it was when abandoned. This makes it one of the most fascinating museums I have ever visited. Old machinery and oddments of iron lie littered everywhere and some of the buildings still contain the materiel of the past. Most of the surviving buildings were wooden but some brick structures survive. Of the bank, only the strongroom with a huge safe inside it is still there.
Old buildings mall had wooden shingles but others had little sheets of iron that mimicked the style.
Presumably all the wood had to be transported up here as there wasn’t much evidence of anything other than grass at this altitude. A walk to the graveyard showed (on limited evidence) that people didn’t live that long. True, there were some who survived into a decent old age but plenty died in their forties and fifties whilst there were lots of children who didn’t survive past their first birthday. One grave marked the resting place of one Waterman S. Bodey who was one of the first to discover gold in the area. Not that it did him much good as he perished in a snow storm four months later.
By the 1930’s it was well into decline and it was abandoned in the 1960s. Since then it has been made into a State Park and is kept as it was when abandoned. This makes it one of the most fascinating museums I have ever visited. Old machinery and oddments of iron lie littered everywhere and some of the buildings still contain the materiel of the past. Most of the surviving buildings were wooden but some brick structures survive. Of the bank, only the strongroom with a huge safe inside it is still there.
Old buildings mall had wooden shingles but others had little sheets of iron that mimicked the style.
Presumably all the wood had to be transported up here as there wasn’t much evidence of anything other than grass at this altitude. A walk to the graveyard showed (on limited evidence) that people didn’t live that long. True, there were some who survived into a decent old age but plenty died in their forties and fifties whilst there were lots of children who didn’t survive past their first birthday. One grave marked the resting place of one Waterman S. Bodey who was one of the first to discover gold in the area. Not that it did him much good as he perished in a snow storm four months later.
After this we ventured down to the shores of Mono Lake. It’s a Californian version of the Dead Sea as it lies in an enclosed basin and is fed by artesian water. As there is no outlet for the water it has become increasingly saline and seagulls are said to float higher in the water.
I took the plunge but it was so cold that my frenzied stroke was such that I couldn’t put the increased buoyancy theory to the test. The mouthful of water I got was certainly very salty and a salty crust soon formed on my eyebrows.
The lake is famous for the tufa formations that rise out of the water. As calcium rich springs feed into the lake the calcium is precipitated into the pillar formations as the lake is already saturated with salts. Water abstraction has significantly lowered the water level over the years and despite an undertaking to restore it in 1994, little progress seems to have been made.
I took the plunge but it was so cold that my frenzied stroke was such that I couldn’t put the increased buoyancy theory to the test. The mouthful of water I got was certainly very salty and a salty crust soon formed on my eyebrows.
The lake is famous for the tufa formations that rise out of the water. As calcium rich springs feed into the lake the calcium is precipitated into the pillar formations as the lake is already saturated with salts. Water abstraction has significantly lowered the water level over the years and despite an undertaking to restore it in 1994, little progress seems to have been made.
No comments:
Post a Comment