Hiking Volcanic Crevices at Black Point
Aug. 25th, 2022 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI said I would do it and I meant it. I am catching up on pictures— and video— from hiking back in June. Recall we took a three-day weekend in mid-June and drove out to the eastern Sierra. That was an adventure in itself, including a literal midnight drive through Yosemite and road construction at 9,000'.
Our first hike that weekend was at Black Point near Mono Lake. Black Point is a dark gray (ha! It's not really black) volcanic dome just north of the lake. Often it's completely ignored by people looking for the iconic tufa structures. ...That's been us, BTW. We've visited the tufa a few times but didn't think to investigate other places around the lake until we were planning this trip.
Black Point is remote. It's a few miles off of paved roads. Dirt trails were no obstacle to our Nissan Xterra 4x4, though. We even explored a little-used side trail and found a way in around the back side of the rocks. We parked about 1/4 mile below the ridge and hoofed it up to the top, an ascent of about 100'. Finding this back way in was nice because it was much less climbing, and less distance, to cover on foot versus coming in from the main parking area.
In the photo above we're looking west-ish toward the crest of the Sierra Nevada. Part of Mono Lake is laid out below us.
The point of this visit isn't to climb atop the rocks and look into the distance. I mean, that part's fun. But what's really unique here is to climb down into the rocks and investigate the narrow crevices.
I captured a number of short videos on my iPhone while I was exploring the narrows. I stitched them together in the video above. Watch it for amazing views and my narrative on what your seeing and how this place was created.
In beauty I walk.
Our first hike that weekend was at Black Point near Mono Lake. Black Point is a dark gray (ha! It's not really black) volcanic dome just north of the lake. Often it's completely ignored by people looking for the iconic tufa structures. ...That's been us, BTW. We've visited the tufa a few times but didn't think to investigate other places around the lake until we were planning this trip.
Black Point is remote. It's a few miles off of paved roads. Dirt trails were no obstacle to our Nissan Xterra 4x4, though. We even explored a little-used side trail and found a way in around the back side of the rocks. We parked about 1/4 mile below the ridge and hoofed it up to the top, an ascent of about 100'. Finding this back way in was nice because it was much less climbing, and less distance, to cover on foot versus coming in from the main parking area.
In the photo above we're looking west-ish toward the crest of the Sierra Nevada. Part of Mono Lake is laid out below us.
The point of this visit isn't to climb atop the rocks and look into the distance. I mean, that part's fun. But what's really unique here is to climb down into the rocks and investigate the narrow crevices.
I captured a number of short videos on my iPhone while I was exploring the narrows. I stitched them together in the video above. Watch it for amazing views and my narrative on what your seeing and how this place was created.
In beauty I walk.
