Bishop, California has been recognized as one of the best "adventure towns" in the country. The reason? Proximity. Checking out Bishop on a map reveals the Sierra Nevada range to the west, Mono Lake and Bodie to the north, and the White and Inyo Mountains to the east. South of Bishop you'll find the Alabama Hills and the OHV trails around Ridgecrest. The list could go on and on.
Over Thanksgiving, Collette and I had a chance to explore some Bishop-area adventure in the company of Jaime Hernandez and his family. Jaime's in-laws, Jerry and Nancy Coleman, have a winter home in Bishop and were our gracious hosts during our visit.
With so many areas to choose from, it was tough to whittle it down to just one or two, but we had more options than we had time, so we zeroed in on a couple and went for it.
We'd read about the Champion Spark Plug Mine in Roger Mitchell's "Inyo-Mono SUV Trails." That was first on the list. The attraction? A steep canyon in the White Mountains leading to a still-standing mining camp.
The Champion mine was used to extract an ore called andalusite. From andalusite, a ceramic can be made that is able to withstand very high-temperature environments, such as those experienced by spark plugs.
The andalusite ore was discovered in 1919, and mine production follow shortly thereafter and continued up until about the end of WWII. Today, a synthetic material has been developed, making it unnecessary to use andalusite ore for spark plugs.
First things first, starting with the trailhead. Our copy of Mitchell's book was from 2003, and of course was accurate at that time. We discovered things had changed on the ground when we tried to find the trailhead. This isn't a dig on Mitchell or his book. Things change. Streets get added and deleted. There's a good reason that SoCal's Thomas Guide gets updated and re-printed every year.
Heading out of Bishop, we passed the town of Laws and continued on.
The trail starts as you leave highway 6 and turn onto the clearly-marked White Mountain Ranch Road. Right where the pavement ends on the southeast corner of the White Mountain Ranch property, you'll see a concrete block structure. This is where the guidebook instructs you to turn left.
Unfortunately, we were greeted by a locked and signed gate instead of an open road. Now what?