Bishop, CA High Desert Cowboy Country

For the past two days we have been shown the Insider's View of the Eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Range and the Western slopes of California's White Mountains. My school friend from Lincoln, ME, Donna(Bates)and her husband Chris Boone have lived in the Bishop, CA area for 30+ years. They are excellent guides since they love to hike, 4X4, fish, hunt and explore in all directions. Mt. Tom rises above their valley and its snow-capped peak tops the view out their prow-shaped great room window. While Donna tended to her Nurse Practitioner Family Practice in the a.m., Chris squired us in his beloved Jeep Cherokee to, up and through the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the Inyo Nat'l Forest in the White Mountains. Surrounded by snow at 10,000 ft, we touched the spikey cones and fragrant needles of gnarled trees that survive for a thousand years and more. Donna joined us for a 3-hour afternoon ride up Rt 395 past the skier's paradise Mammoth Mtn, to pristine Convict Lake filling with snow melt, to the Fish and Game trout hatchery where Chris once worked, to briney Mono Lake Basin with its tufa calcium carbonate formations. We look forward to seeing Donna and Chris back in Maine this summer. They welcome guests to nearby Grand Lake Wilderness Retreat on Junior Bay from mid-May to September. Note: Los Angeles, 250 miles away, has owned all the water rights to this area since the late 1800's. Aqueducts collect and carry away the snow melt that runs into the rivers and creeks, leaving the lakes greatly depleted. How does any group claim the rights to the snow? That's like owning the air!