On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
UncleEbeneezer
As we hit early afternoon we felt like we still hadn’t really gotten the fix of fabulous fall foliage we had set out for that morning. Silver Lake, Poole Power Plant Rd., and the drive up to Twin Lakes had all been really pretty but most of the color had been patchy-at-best. But according to CaliforniaFallColor and an Eastern Sierra FB page that I frequent, the place to go was Green Creek.
Just north of Virginia Lakes (one of the E. Sierra hotspots where fall color usually starts first) Green Creek Rd travels nine miles west to Green Creek Campground, with an option to detour through Dunderberg Meadows. It’s a bumpy, washboard drive by through stunning meadows with groves of aspen all along the creekside. We had done Green Creek to Dunderberg years ago, but the color had been well past-peak. This time we hoped that our timing would be better and we’d also take the drive all the way up to Green Creek. We weren’t disappointed!
The drive was much nicer in our rental suv than it was in our own car a few years back. We also discovered that if you speed up just enough, the bumping from the washboard surface was much less irritating. The views along the drive were pretty spectacular. As you can see, we were heading right into a small rainstorm which made the sky look even cooler.
Now THAT is the kind of view we had been hoping for…
The hillsides were speckled with aspen-gold.
When the roadside aspens were backlit it was a sight to behold.
What a lovely drive. Though we were starting to get pretty hungry.
Not sure if this is Green Creek or Dunderberg Rd., portion of the drive but it was quite pretty.
This is definitely Dunderberg.
Aspens, mountains, sky…what a combo!
One or two more groves to drive through as we approach the junction for Virginia Lakes Rd., and then back to the 395.
One last look at this stunning view. Time to head back to our campground and maybe see if we could squeeze in a sunset hike!
Chris T.
Washboard roads are a bit weird. There’s usually a sort of optimal speed for minimizing the bone-shaking. Sometimes it’s too fast for traction though.
J.
Wow. Stunning, indeed. Thanks for sharing!
SteveinPHX
Thank you for the photographs. I really like the first one in this series.
Anyway
very nice! The light and the colors together make for gorgeous photographs.
JeanneT
I don’t usually get wowed by mountain photos, but these are beautiful!
Albatrossity
Stunners, all. Thanks for sharing these!
martha
These are amazing too! Thank you for sharing!
Trivia Man
Did you see anybody else? Those back roads are better if there is nobody else around. I used to drive around the Great Basin on back roads and revel in the solitude.
KatKapCC
These are lovely!
MCat
Thank you! These photos are gorgeous.
Jacel
Great scenes!
BigJimSlade
Beautiful!
WaterGirl
Stunning, striking photos, all of them!
UncleEbeneezer
@Trivia Man: Yeah this is a pretty well known drive in the area and it was a weekend that draws a lot of leaf-peepers. So we probably saw a couple-dozen other cars but that was over about two hours of driving so there were definitely sig stretches where we didn’t see anyone. I’d guesstimate maybe one other car about every 5-10 minutes. Had we broken down, we wouldn’t have had to wait too long for someone else to pass by.