395 North to Lake Tahoe

Doug and Cassi Glass wrote:
Have to disagree about nothing to see between SD and Bishop. From Pearsonville north the whole topography changes from desert open spaces to outstanding mountain vistas. Mt. Whitney, Manzanar WWII Japanese interment camp, Alabama Hills, independence courthouse(star of many films), the elk herd always visible in the alphafa fields, the "Ears" radio telescopes near Big Pine. Lots to see and do around Lone Pine. Fish for golden trout. An amazing area.

I Agee with your post 100 percent.

Have to disagree about nothing to see between SD and Bishop. From Pearsonville north the whole topography changes from desert open spaces to outstanding mountain vistas. Mt. Whitney, Manzanar WWII Japanese interment camp, Alabama Hills, independence courthouse(star of many films), the elk herd always visible in the alphafa fields, the "Ears" radio telescopes near Big Pine. Lots to see and do around Lone Pine. Fish for golden trout. An amazing area.

We have been now at SnowFlower for 14 days and the camp ground is very nice among some tall timbers and right next to Crystal lake. We had no problems with over heating. We did hit lots of rain coming up the mountains and the temps up here have been around 75-80 degrees in the day time, at night around 49 degrees this morning. Lots of fishing and have really enjoyed the canoe in the lake.

But I will admit, the Cat 330 I had the pedal to the metal doing a whopping 45 mph climbing some of those grades. LOL

"MeadowCliff"....a very nice campground, we normally stop on our way up too. I actually like Topaz Casino/Campground, for the price and coupon books, it cant be beat. I dont gamble much but their drinks are always flowing freely...:B

Piece o' cake. Do it every year with my C7 funmover. Loaded we are at about 34k. Never see the temp gauge ri much on the Bishop to Mammoth grade but I keep my foot out of it. 30-35 mph is plenty up that. I do have the advantage of a front radiator.

We just finished driving 395 - once again! It's a favorite of ours. We made stops in Lone Pine, June Lake and Meadowcliff before taking Hwy 50 to Sacramento. Have a good trip!

Ed Manifold wrote:
Thanks for your reply, I just pulled it up on the web and I seethat it's not off 395.

It is off I-80 and you get off on the Yuba Gap. It is a private preserve owned by NACO up in the Sierra's. Never been there, but they get something like 500 inches of snow in mid winter there, lots of bear in the area, fishing, trails. So I am going to check it out and get out of this high desert. Getting hot today at 100 degrees. But I will start my trip around the twentieth taking my time, stopping at different places off 395 to fish different creeks like McGee creek right across from Lake Crawly. Convict Lake for a couple of days and June Lake. So I will not arrive at SnowFlower until the 25th and will stay there for three weeks. I have heard that it is real nice. Hope they are right, we got other RVers coming out of Las Vegas to join us. So it should be fun.

But I did drive that route up from Bishop one time pulling a trailer with a pick up and I thought at the time that it was pretty steep. But I have also driven this coach up to Idyllwild several time from Beaumont and it has gone up pretty easy with no problems and that is around 7200 elevation at about a 6% grade.

I will wash the radiator one more time and the CAC to make sure it has plenty of cooling. I never have had problems with it as far as oil getting on it because the tube was way down where if it threw out oil it would not get on the radiator. So I am really looking forward to this trip. It used to be a very scenic route once you start climbing from Bishop all the way to Tahoe.

SnowFlower is 60 miles from Reno off highway 80.

Quite frankly, I always start my trips in the evening hours for many reasons. The obvious one, less traffic and wide open roads and with both of us being in the greater Southern Calif area, thats an important aspect and maybe not so important to others in a more rural area.

I like to take care of my diesel and there's no doubt that those grades we're speaking of are hard on any engine/motor, gas or diesel. I dont have the 3126 but Im still at 350 hp in my 3176(10.3 litre) and with my MH being 17 years old, pulling a toad and loaded to the hilt, Im still down to 3rd gear keeping my RPM up going up that grade outside of Bishop(or at least some portions of that grade). Last year, mistakenly, I did the Kingsbury grade out of Minden, Nv into Lake Tahoe, talk about a hill! I wont do that one again anytime soon. To me, its a fact of life in So Cal during the summer months....your arent going anyplace without hitting some heat and Id just as soon take it a tad easier with cooler temps in the PM/early AM hours. Its just something I do and everyone is different. Anyways, if your in or around Tahoe after July 7th, we'll be at Tahoe Valley for a couple of weeks...stop by and say Hi! :B

Acampingwewillgo wrote:
Have to agree with the late night idea.....I will normally plan my trip so that I hit the grade out of Bishop in the cooler late night/early AM time period, besides I love that Rest area just before you get to the June Lake loop. It just so happens this year, Im going up the 99 to hit the American River first then to Lake Tahoe after but Ill still be doing this at night too.

Acampingwewillgo,
When I posted the original thread about that trip and the benefits of night time driving, I received very mixed reviews. Some don't like any night driving and some can tolerate it just fine. Some have very much difficulty in judgment in driving due to impaired vision and, they also sort of "chastised" me for doing such maneuvering at night in camp sites while folks were sleeping. Well, as usual, a simple thread turned into WWIII.

In any case, we'll be doing the exact same run, from San Diego to the rest stop about 30 south of Bishop, starting at 12:30 midnight in or around the early part of July. That rest stop, is a nice place take a break and get some rest. And, hopefully, since the radiator and CAC are seriously cleaner now, we should have better cooling. Even when it was that clogged up, the engine ran fine in temps until we hit some grades.

Hope everyone has a good time on their trips this summer, as long as we can all afford diesel fuel.
Scott

Thanks for your reply, I just pulled it up on the web and I seethat it's not off 395.