Posts Made By: Fred Lusk

Sunset over the Sierra Crest from the vicinity of Boot Arch.

Boot Arch silhouette in black and white.

Boot Arch is in the far northern reaches of the Alabama Hills.  The best book on the arches of the Alabama Hills appears to be the appropriately named “Arches of the Alabama Hills” by Orlyn Fordham.  See https://www.amazon.com/Arches-Alabama-Hills-features-coordinates/dp/1493636146/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=arches+of+the+alabama+hills&qid=1606027807&sr=8-1. The book covers 72 arches (out of an estimated 300+) and 23 other features and includes maps, GPS coordinates, and photographs. However, the book doesn’t include Boot Arch, which is about a mile north of the areas covered by the author.  You can also find on the Internet various maps and sketches that show the locations of a few arches. Unfortunately, the BLM brochure for the Alabama Hills doesn’t show very many. The most comprehensive "map" I found (and the only one I found that shows Boot Arch) is http://www.eugenecarsey.com/camp/alabamahills/arches/map01.jpg, but it’s drawn as a schematic, not as an accurate map. However, Eugene Carsey’s website includes GPS coordinates and other data for some (many?) of the arches here.  See http://www.eugenecarsey.com/camp/alabamahills/arches.html.  For a good, simple map with the best arches, try: https://www.americansouthwest.net/california/alabama-hills/map.html. The Alabama Hills has also seen its fair share of movie making, especially westerns. Lone Pine has a Museum of Western Film History, but we have never stopped there. You can learn more here: https://www.museumofwesternfilmhistory.org/

The next morning, most of us (not including my wife who is a night owl) got up well before sunrise to meet at the parking lot for the Arch Trail. Our goal was to catch sunrise alpenglow on the Sierra crest, followed by moonset. Unfortunately, we had lost the dramatic sky from the night before.

For some reason [maybe the boring sky? maybe something I said?  ], I was the only one of our group to head straight for Mobius Arch, which is the biggest attraction along the Arch Trail and one of the biggest attractions in the entire Alabama Hills. Later, two members of our group wandered by, but incredibly I had Mobius Arch virtually all to myself for nearly an hour. When my wife and I visited the Alabama Hills for her birthday in February (not long before lockdown), I shared Mobius Arch with perhaps a dozen other people.

So, this is Mobius Arch with Mt. Whitney and friends under the arch. The arch spans about 12 feet.  Mobius, like the rest of the Alabama Hills is granite.

Sunrise alpenglow and the Moon through Mobius Arch.

The Moon through Mobius Arch.

The Moon finally reaches the Sierra crest.

Just a few dozen feet west of Mobius Arch is smaller Lathe Arch, which spans about 6 feet. Lathe Arch frames the Sierra crest much differently than Mobius Arch, creating more of a panoramic look. It’s also harder to photograph at Lathe Arch because there is not much room to stand and a rock wall prevents backing up.

Heart Arch with the distant Inyo Mountains faintly in the background. Heart Arch spans about 3 feet and is visible from the parking lot for the Arch Trail. However, it is about 1000 feet away, so it takes a fairly long telephoto lens to get this kind of a view.

After I hiked the Arch Trail (which is only about a mile long loop), I ventured over to another area I hadn't explored before. In Fordham’s book this area is called "Movie Road East."

Here is an interesting jumble of rocks, with Lone Pine Peak in the background and "Cyclops Arch" in the foreground just lower left of center. Cyclops is about 18” across and maybe 3 feet long. Within about a 100-foot radius of this point, I found three more small arches and one modest ground-level double arch.

The obligatory snapshot of "Face Rock," AKA "Miss Alabama."