Pine Creek Rd - Bishop, CA

Recognize the photo? Not likely. Colorado? Nope. Utah? Nope. The Alps? Nope.

Pine Creek Rd, near Bishop, CA and a few miles south of Mammoth, is paved for 10 miles to an abandoned tungsten mine at the base of the Eastern Sierra Nevada Range at the 8,000-ft level. No one will ever be on this road. Why? It's a dead end.

The Union Carbide Tungsten Mine began operation in 1937 and operated through 1990. Tungsten is a heavy metal used to make things harder; it is used in hardening drill bits and munitions, and it's heavily used in light bulb filaments since its melting point is well above 6,000 degrees. More than 400 people once worked at this mine and were housed in Rovana and Bishop.

The tiny community of Rovana was built by the mine owners as a company town, completed in 1947. The U.S. Vanadium Corporation acquired the Foreman Ranch near the base of Pine Creek Canyon and built the town to house those who worked at the nearby Union Carbide mine. By the early 1950s, 135 homes had been built on streets named after states matching the letters of "Vanadium." The first letter of each street spells out V-A-N-A-D-I-U-M: Virginia, Arizona, Nevada, Alabama, Dakota, Idaho, Utah, and Montana. The town name comes from "Ro" for Round Valley and "vana" for U.S. Vanadium.

The Union Carbide Tungsten Mine was known as an "upside-down mine." Tunnels at the base of the Sierra Nevada went 2-1/2 miles straight and level into the mountain range and then extended upward. Elevators lifted the miners 2,700 feet—literally into the center of the mountain—then pulled the ore down, rather than tunneling downward into the earth like most gold mines in the Sierra Foothill Mother Lode regions. Because the ore body sits inside Mount Morgan, the mine's upper workings reached heights of nearly 12,000 feet, making it the highest operating mine in California for decades.

By 1942, the Pine Creek Mine was the largest producer of tungsten in the United States. It ceased production in April 2000, with final closure and mothballing completed by late 2001.

Today, the mine is in a state of "suspended animation," battling to reinvent itself as a massive hydroelectric source using the snowmelt that accumulates deep inside the mountain. The site is quite literally a mountain full of water, with Mount Morgan acting as a giant sponge. Every winter, the snow pack melts and seeps through the porous granite into thousands of feet of old mining stopes and vertical shafts. Instead of letting it just leak out the bottom, the mine owners want to "catch" the mountain's internal runoff and route it through water turbines.

Because the water accumulates inside the tunnels, the mountain acts as a natural battery. The mine can hold the water behind a plug and release it when power is needed most, effectively turning a 100-year-old industrial relic into a modern green-energy storage facility. The inside of the mountain stores 91 million gallons of water and "refills" itself naturally every 10 days. The mine entrance at the base of the mountain is effectively the drain to a "bathtub" full of water.

As for the pictured road, it's an out-and-back dead end. Why bother riding it? Just stare at the photo of the Pashnit Motorcycle Tour group for a few more minutes. Explains itself.

Pine Creek Road is a classic Sierra "climb to nowhere"—perfectly paved; winding between massive granite peaks, and always deserted. The views on this ride into the canyon are mind blowing.

Oh, and how many times have you ridden up and down Highway 395 and passed this by? Be honest.

The real allure of Highway 395 is getting off Highway 395 and riding all these dead ends into the Eastern Sierra Range.

https://www.pashnit.com/ca-lower-rock-creek-rd