Ray DeLea

   

   

   


Mt. Whitney and the Eastern Sierra crest as seen from Thunder Mountain.
(Photograph by Mike Porter - 1977)
   

 

Entries since 25 September 2010 - Archival Mt. Whitney Pack Trains Photos
Entries since 19 November 2010 - 1903 Sierra Club High Trip Photos
Entries since 11 December 2010 - Slim Randles on "The Cast Iron Ranger"
Entries since 18 December 2010 - Bruce Morgan Memories
Entries since 02 October 2011 - Darwin
Entries since 26 December 2011 - Death Valley Sketches
Entries since 30 December 2011 - Black Jed B-24 Bomber

 

 

Entries since 10 October 2009 - A Trip Along the El Camino Sierra by Peter Kyne
Entries since 10 October 2009 - Hiroshi Honda Paintings from a Private Collection
Entries since 13 October 2009 - Tom Jackson & Elizabeth Adamson Recollections of Manzanar
Entries since 17 October 2009 - Richard Leach Remembers Gene and Lona Burkhart
Entries since 17 October 2009 - Tom Key rembers Chuck Yeager, Bob White, and Tunnel Meadows
Entries since 20 February 2010 - Pat Decano on Bob White, and Tunnel Airfield
Entries since 23 September 2010 - Chrysler and Cook

Entries since 23 September 2010 - Carson and Colorado Railroad
Entries since 20 November 2010 - Patti Doolittle Cowgirls

Entries since 23 December 2010 - Manzanar Song Sung by Tom Paxton
Entries since 23 December 2010 - Janet Ogg remembers Onion Valley Pack Station
Entries since 23 December 2010 - Joe Tysl remembers Tunnel Guard Station
Entries since 02 October 2011 - Lone Pine Elementary Class of 1920
Entries since 15 April 2012 - A Cowboy Guide to Growing Up Right (See below on this page)

 

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Attention ... you must see this!

Flight over Owens Valley and the High Sierra
Flight over Mammoth Lakes Area

Flight over the California Basin and Range Province
Other flights
by Dr. William A. Bowen


Attention all of you High Sierra packers!

Sun Dog Days is book you DO NOT want to miss reading. Slim Randles has masterfully captured the life of two Owens Valley packers, Buck and Smokey, and their adventure, not only in the Coso Mountains but their adventure in life. It is a heartwarming story which will challenge your emotions as you reflect on those days when you were once a packer yourself.
Slim has informed me that he is working on the screenplay to his book and it will soon be made into a motion picture. When it is, I hope that all of you former and current packers will do the High Sierra packing business the honor of seeing the movie.

Sun Dog Days is available at www.amazon.com

 Attention Cowboys and Packers!

Slim Randles has authored another wonderful book that I'm certain all of you cowboys and packers will not only enjoy reading yourself, but enjoy reading to your children. In a time when people seem to have sacrifice their morals on the altar of political correctness, Slim has authored a book which will help parents instill a true moral compass in their children, and perhaps, in the process, reset their own. Wow! What a book Slim!

A Cowboy's Guide to Growing Up Right is available at www.amazon.com

   

Add this to your site

 
   


All photographs are from the archives of the Pigmy Packer unless otherwise noted!
This site is graciously being hosted by the owner's of Shocking.Com - Stop by and pay them a visit and express you thanks for their generosity. Without their generosity, this site would not be possible.

 Mt. Whitney Pack Trains [pdf]
by Charles Morgan
   


 

Owens Valley History readers, it's time to put on your thinking cap, we all need your help. Many vistors have left me with unsolved questions, mysteries, etc. regarding people, places, and events that have occurred in Owens Valley. Please take the time to look at this new page on the website and see if you might have the answer to some of the readers questions. If you have any information at all please e-mail the individual with your comments.





The Internet Wayback Machine




   

Mt. Whitney Pack Trains
History

Owens Valley History

Chrysler and Cook Brochure

1903 Sierra Club High Trip

El Camino Sierra

Mary Austin

Mt. Whitney Pack Trains - 1930s & 1940s

Aberdeen

George Brown,
Native American,
Pine Creek Pack Station

Matlicks

Mt. Whitney Packers of the 1940s - 1970s

Allie Robinson Pack Trains

Ghosts of the Past 1

Night Ride

1950s Mt. Whitney Pack Trains Brochure

Aparejo Packing in the Sierras

Ghosts of the Past 2

Norman Clyde

Mt. Whitney Packer's
1995 Reunion &
MWPT Roster of Packers

At the Movies

Ghosts of the Past 3 - Bruce Morgan & the 20 Mule Team '49ers

Olancha

 One Packer's High Sierra Experience

Bessie Brady Steamer

Ghosts of the Past 4 -
20 Mule Team History

Owens Valley Aqueduct

Sierra Club "High Trips" - 1946 - 1972

Big Pine

Golden Trout Camp Brochure

Packing Equipment

Packing, 50 Years Ago

Bishop Pioneers

 High Sierra Pack Stations

Rex Montis Mine

"To the Top of
Mt. Whitney" by Rena Moore

Black Jed - B24 Bomber

High Sierra, Owens Valley & Packing Stories

Saline-to-Owens Valley Tram

The Morgans

Brochures from Owens Valley

High sierra Panoramas

Sawdust Magazine

Mary Jefferson Archives

Burton Frasher

Independence

Sierra Crossing

Bruce Morgan Memories

Carson & Colorado RR

John H. Lubken

Sierra Place Names
 

Casa Diablo & Hot Creek

Keeler

Sierra Nevada Wildflowers
 

Cerro Gordo

Keough's Hot Springs

Tunnel Airfield
 

Cowgirls

Lone Pine

Vintage MWPT photos of the Mt. Whitney Trail
 

Darwin

Lone Pine-to-Porter-
ville High Sierra Road

Willie Chalfant
 

Death Valley Sketches

Manzanar Internment Camp

Wonacotts
 

Cowgirl Portal
(under construction)

Desert Padre
(Fr. John J. Crowley)

Manzanar (Town)
 


In search of Owens Valley Ancestory? The following Inyo County website might be your answer.
Courtesy of Pam in Bishop, CA

  Inyo County Gen Web




Hey all of you desert lovers!
All of the issues of Desert Magazine, starting with 1937, are now online for you viewing pleasure.
Many thanks to Rocko for making this wonderful magazine available to all of us desert rats once again.


   

Golden Trout, A Packer's Delight
   

 :Featured Artists

Leslie Englehardt

 Marye's daughter

 Dan Patitucci

 

 Doreman Burns

 

Brad Braune

 

James E. Knauf

 

Robert Anderson

 

 Sharon Hunt

 

Don Vernon

 

Marye Roeser

 
   

 Favorite Links:
  Owens Valley
  WWII & Owens Valley
  Japanese Internment
  Manzanar
  Owens Valley Aqueduct
  Sierra Wildflowers
  Sierra Panoramas
  Sierra & the West
   
   
   


Many thanks to the Backcountry Horsemen of California for their continuing efforts over the decades to help preserve the Sierra Nevada and keep it open to livestock. They strive to promote conservation and the awareness of the benefit of livestock in the backcountry. In addition I, in particular, am thankful that they strive to keep everyone appraised of those, who through misguided legislation or self interests, would try to ban livestock from the mountain range packers not only opened to the public, but who also made us aware of the importance of preserving that same country. It is indeed ironic that it has been those on two feet with easy road-end access to the Sierra, and not four, who have contaminated nearly every stream and lake in the Sierra with giardia.
   

Many heartfelt thanks to all of the packers, Owens Valley pioneers, and friends who have so generously contributed to this site in pictures and words so that others might share in the experiences that God has so graciously granted to them!
   

  Is the above back country vista familiar to you; and how about these golden trout? You can almost taste them as they're frying in the pan. Have you ever been to Golden Trout Camp? Wonderful times and great people with many an interesting story to tell. Names like Frank Chrysler, Ted Cook (see their 1940's Mt. Whitney Pack Trains brochure), Ike Livermore, Bruce Morgan (once a driver of the famed Borax 20 mule team and manager to the Tunnel Air Camp), Tommy Jefferson, Charles Morgan, and a host of other packers, private party guests, and Sierra Club cooks, commissary and club members. Let's not forget those Trail Riders, hunters and forest service trail crews which were packed in over those many years. Many have been lead home gently by our Father but many are still with us. Some, like Irene Kritz, are still in the saddle and packing every season. All encompass an exciting group of people which time and the trails will never forget.  Fish Fry
   

rock creek How many times have we all seen this trail sign? It has either meant hours in the saddle pushing cache or more hours on foot finding out where the packers left everything. Whatever the means of one's getting to the next camp, you could always be assured of a good cold stream bath and warm dinner at the end. Let's not forget those evenings of back country stories, guitar pickin', campfires and practical jokes. The Sierra Club girls were always beautiful and just waiting to make the packers a lunch for the trail and/or steal your heart away. What an exciting time it was for all of us at Mt. Whitney Pack Trains from 1946 through 1972.  
   

Share the experiences you have had: with the Mt. Whitney Packers
as a High Sierra packer
as an Owens Valley pioneer
as the descendent of a pioneer
   

If you have pictures of people/places which you would like posted on this site please e-mail me for posting instructions. Please try to include the following information with each picture or story (if you can recall):

  • The date the picture was taken (month/year)
  • The place the picture was taken
  • The names of any people in the picture
  • The type of trip you were on (Sierra Club, Trail Riders, private party, hunting, trail crew etc.)
  • The trip leader and cook's name

In addition to pictures, if you have a particular trail story, humorous or serious, which you would like to share with everyone please e-mail it directly to me. If you e-mail the file, please send the file in either Microsoft Word, if possible, or as a pure text file.

Remember - there are a host of folks out there waiting to blessed by your High Sierra or Owens Valley story. Don't disapoint them, or yourself, by failing to share your experience.

Thank you, from everyone, for obeying that still small voice within you and sharing your heart and experiences with everyone.



Owens Lake in 1911 before it was drained dry by Los Angeles
owens lake

   


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Golden Trout Camp in the High Sierra

 Chrysler and Cook's Mt. Whitney Pack Trains

 Panoramas of the High Sierra

   


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 Pigmy Packer & Guests
The Pigmy Packer (1970), with his horse - Quarter Boy, and two guest from New York on New Army Pass. Mules were Nigger, Bart, and Dan.


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Feb 2012 - Oct 1999

Ray
The Pigmy Packer (1997)

Sunhorn
The Pigmy Packer


The Pigmy Packer (2001)


This page was last updated on 20 April 2012
   

   

   

sierra life
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