When Autumn set in and it started getting gloomy, we headed out of Idaho meaning to recreate in Oregon for a while. However, we were shortly overtaken by an arctic cold front that sent temperatures plunging into the single digits, so we made a run for the desert and wound up in the Alabama Hills. The Alabama Hills Recreation Area is in the Owens Valley near Big Pine. Lots of advertisements are shot there, particularly the kind that show beefy vehicles rumbling triumphantly over challenging terrain…you know: conquer the great outdoors in your 4WD truck, that sort of thing. Because it’s well known that when you buy a vehicle, you actually purchase an entire lifestyle.

To give you a hint as to the exact kind of lifestyle you might be able to buy if you have several tens of thousands of dollars to spare for a large truck, here are some pictures of the Alabama Hills. We actually had trouble finding a campsite there because the whole place was lousy with people fleeing the fires that were all over the Sierra. It is the “gateway to Mt. Whitney”, which some may recognize as the highest mountain in the lower 48 states. Mt. Whitney actually appears in some of these photos, but it is hard to distinguish it from other, almost-as-high peaks in the eastern Sierra.

Mt. Whitney at sunrise. Which one is Mt. Whitney? It’s sort of back there among the jagged peaks in the background to the leftish.

This is what the Alabama Hills are famous for. Just imagine a giant truck surging along in the foreground, bumping and weaving as the rocks loom ever closer…will we make it? Can it happen? YES! We are victorious! <insert brand name of truck here> can take you where no man has gone before! Except the Vagabond Tourist, on foot, tottering around in braces with a hiking pole in each hand.

One last picture looking toward the Sierra…this is really a sky-scape.