Bishop & Bishop Creek Canyon CA

Bishop has been described as "California's hidden treasure."  While it's true that treasures abound here in the beautiful Eastern High Sierra, Bishop is not quite as "hidden" as you might imagine.  In fact, Bishop is located in the very middle of California, where Highways 6 and 395 intersect.  An easy 4-5 hour drive on well maintained roads will bring you to Bishop from the Los Angeles area, San Francisco Bay area, Reno or Las Vegas.  Many people pass through Bishop on the way to other destinations including Death Valley National Park, Yosemite and Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.  Instead of just "passing” we decided to stay a few days and explore the area.

In down town Bishop we enjoyed a walking tour to see the beautiful murals scattered all over the place.

 

Then drove to Bishop Creek Canyon on Hwy 168 West towards beautiful Sabrina lake ,on the way we stopped and visited North Lake with its amazing scenery and reflections like taken from a postcard.

After a short walk on the banks of North Lake we continued along Hwy 168 till it ends with Sabrina Lake , another great lake that is loosing water and shrinking due to the draught, but still an amazing place to come ,paint ,hike or take a ride on one of the boats.

 

And now for the real scenery:

The “fog” on the mountains is a result of the fire in California,we were lucky to see so far and if the wind would shift towards us we would be walking like with our eyes shut, but even the “fog” did not spoil the scenery it even added some “mystery” to it.

On the way back we stopped at Cardinal Village Resort (it is a must) , a very nice place with cabins to rent,old store,beer,wine,horse/mule rentals ,all this on a creek with running water.

Get a drink and a hiking map to the falls & to the old mine ,they are both short hikes very moderate and very rewarding,be careful walking on the rocks they are slippery.

We were told that bears visit this are often, we took it lightly till we saw this on the trail….and it looked very “fresh”,luckily we did not see the provider of this specimen .

We are close to end our journey along the beautiful Hwy 395 in the high Sierras from Topaz Lake till Lone Pine (in the next few days) ,it is sure one of the most challenging,amazing,natural area we have ever experienced,we did cover a lot of grounds with our feet no other way would bring  us to many beautiful valleys,lakes,falls,natural hot pools,mines ,old towns and no other way we could meet many nature loving people like we did,many times we were speechless when facing these incredible natural phenomena's and the only word that we managed to say was WOOOW when facing this kind of sceneries.

We only wish to continue to do more of this….