Framedlight

We drove back down to Lone Pine and took the 136 across a bare, windwept, dusty plain passing Owens Lake. At this level there was no glint of water in it but just sand stretching as far as the distant hills. In the early part of the 20th century Los Angeles built an aqueduct from the lake and pumped all the water out of it so by 1920 the lake, which was once 900ft deep, was completely dry. The Owens Valley had been an area of farms and pasture but now the sandy bowl has to be watered in order to damp down the dust storms. Driving on for about an hour and a half, the ground rose past strange coloured hills. We came through Panamint Springs where there is an area of green and saw two coyotes sunning themselves on the side of the road. Unfortunately we had been caught up by some other cars by that stage and could not stop. We arrived in the small community of Stovepipe Wells where there is a campsite. I had actually booked a pitch in Furnace Springs, about 20...