Just Another Pile of Rocks and a Waterfall

Devils Post Pile National Monument seems like a small obscure little park. It’s just about two miles long by a half a mile wide.  It was created to stop a power company from blowing up the ‘post-pile” to dam the river for a hydro-electric plant.  It is kind of out of the way and most people only know about it because it is a national monument.

Devils Post Pile

I have driven by the sign for it many times and I finally had some time to check it out.  If you aren’t camping in the park or if you get there between 7am and 7pm you must take the shuttle bus into and throughout the park.  I really didn’t want to pay the $7 for the shuttle and wanted to have freedom to travel around so I decided to try and get there before 7am.  I rushed out of my house and just past Mammoth Lakes I thought I was getting close to the park and at 6:53am I saw a sign: "Devils Post Pile 13 miles."  Knowing I wasn’t going to make it I pulled over and ate the breakfast that I didn’t get to while rushing out of the house.

44.5% of the columns are 6-sided

 I started driving again and after just a few miles I got to the entrance station at 7:07am. Of course they wouldn’t let me drive in-because there is such a big difference between 7 and 7:07 for driving into a park.  Thank you NPS for truly serving the people of 'merica. 

You can see the scratches (striations) from a glacier on top of the post pile.

More glacial striations.

Having to take the shuttle ended up working out all right.  It allowed me to link up different trailheads to do a loop between Devils Post Pile and Rainbow Falls.  

Rainbow Falls.  I really appreciated this moment because there will be NOTHING like this in Antarctica.

I did completely fail at being in the park for good lighting on the falls and the post pile.  Late afternoon (NOT early morning) would have given me the famed rainbow below Rainbow Falls and more direct lighting on the post pile.  Can’t win every battle.  It was still a nice relaxing day wandering through the woods of the Sierra.

I really tried to not be a creeper while taking this...