2006 05 Nevada, California

2006 05 19 Bartlett, Keeler, Alabama Hills

Today I went back to the soda ash plant in Bartlett both early in the morning and in the evening. During the day the light is just too "hot" and un interesting. This is an exterior snap with shadows from the sun in the east.

After spending a couple of hours there I took a look at the small semi-ghost town of Keeler on the northeast side of Owens Lake. Here and here are a couple of web pages about Keeler. (The latter has an annoying ad at the top, but a fair number of snapshots.)

Keeler is the center of operations for the LA DWP dust abatement project, and there are quite a number of semi-permanant "temporary" structures in place. It looks like a long term effort. Here is a piece from LA DWP itself on their efforts.

The left of the above two gives you some idea that there is still no love lost between some Owens Valley residents and the LA DWP. One of the notes on the small white sign says "Flush often, LA needs the water!"

This must be the pool that was mentioned in the first of the two items on Keeler. It looks pretty lost, and you can see that it used to be right on the shore of the lake.

After poking around Keeler for a while I drove back to Lone Pine and up the Mt. Whitney Portal road. This road ends at the beginning of the trail that takes you to the top of Mt. Whitney. (For you running lunatics, there is a race every year from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney Portal- the Badwater Ultramarathon.)

The first three pictures look north up the Owens Valley, east, and south to Owens Lake. The last shot looks straight west at Mt. Whitney, which is the sharp peak to the right of the two smaller sharp peaks in the center of the photo.

After that back to Bartlett for some more photos. The second shot shows dust blowing off the lake bed. This plume is probably half a mile long and two or three hundred feet high. It was extremely windy. I watched this dust blow all the way across the lake and up and over the Inyo Mountains.

In the late afternoon it was so windy here that I thought the plant was going to blow apart. The racket of the sheet metal banging in the wind was fierce. This is a recording I made, and it might give you some idea of what it sounded like. Imagine this loud.

The Owens Valley is known for wind, and known for spectacular clouds. Here are some. The first shot was taken in the Alabama Hills, and the wind was driving me out of my mind. The second was taken from the middle of the road in Lone Pine, looking north.