A Blast From The Past

I’m going for a ride on Betty Jane this weekend. She may be 70 years old, but she is sleek and she can still dance. Now, don’t get all riled up. Yeah, I’m a happily married man, but sometimes a man’s just got to do what a man’s got to do. And…. I have my wife’s permission.

Let me ‘splain what all led up to this…..

They call them the White Mountains, and they named the tallest one White Mountain. Nothing remarkable about this. These mountains are snow capped much of the year. That might be why. I don’t recall a Mr. White hiking the place looking for a lost gold mine, so I’ll stick with this explanation.

The White Mountains are taller than the Inyos and those cinder cones south of Mono Lake so they hang on to their snow longer, and if you are looking at them from near Mono Lake, and you turn around to look up to the Sierra Nevada summits behind you, the White Mountains won’t look like it but they are actually taller.

Most everybody knows about the Sierra Nevada Range, but I venture some fewer know about the Whites. The big highway follows the base of the Sierra Nevada from Reno down to Mojave, but only a couple of lightly traveled roads go near the Whites. No ski resorts up in the Whites. No bed and breakfast places or golf courses. Not much man made up there at all.

The Bristlecone Pines live up there, and they are worth the visit, but few folks do. Not many people like looking at old trees. Just as well. Those trees like their peace and quiet. But there is a road that runs south to north up the ridge that is that mountain range, and it’s even paved for a while. Past the Bristlecones the road thins out a mite. It goes to gravel, and then to bumps, and pretty soon it’s not much of a road at all, winding where the mountain lets it, always climbing, up to where the other things thin out, too.

No trees up there. No bushes even. Some flowers that keep their heads down out of the wind. Lichen covered rocks. A few marmots, and they sleep underground. Even the air thins down to a bare minimum, although the wind is a presence.

When you get to the gate, you stop and park just off the road. Down below, which you can’t really see from there, you can take breathing for granted, but the gate is at 11,200 feet. Here you sea level folks learn to breathe all over again. And when you begin walking at the gate, and that jeep track you follow continues uphill, sucking in thin air preoccupies your consciousness.

Persevere, and after seven miles, eventually you will reach the summit of White Mountain, which has a little weather station and an old WPA stone building and nothing else. Well, not exactly nothing else. The summit holds some of those intangibles that motivate folks to do silly things like this. A view, for instance. Past your toes it drops off about 8000 feet to the foot of the mountain. And over there, that entire western horizon is defined by the jagged summits lined up along the Sierra Crest. That part’s nice.

To the left along that crest you can see Mts. Whitney at 14,505 feet and Williamson at 14,389. Those are the two tallest in the state. And this is the only place in California where you can say you are standing on the third highest mountain in the state, at 14,252 feet.

Just happened to be standing on White Mountain summit one morning when a sailplane passed by, below me. The valley between the Sierra Crest and the White Mountains generates some wonderful thermals, and the wind hitting the escarpment I was standing on also will bounce a sailplane up. This guy was driving back and forth below me, gaining altitude with each turn. I could look into his cockpit. He didn’t wave back.

The first time I looked down upon an aircraft while standing astride a mountain summit, I was on top of Mt Whitney. That time it was an F-15 I believe. This guy was playing around, passing between mountains and then to our west, slightly below our altitude. I briefly could see inside his cockpit as he turned. He went by in rather a hurry, so he didn’t wave, either.

Tagged Telescope Peak at some point in time between these other mountains. It’s a pimple at only 11,043 feet, but it does claim one thing. On top there, you can look down to Badwater, the lowest spot in North America, and then turn around to look at Whitney, the highest. This time it was an F-18 that went by, below me. 

A couple of years ago, I stood atop Mt Diablo, our local 3800 foot “mountain”. Drove up to show it to a friend who had not been on the top before, despite living in the area for decades. A good crowd milled about on a Sunday afternoon. We were on the exposed viewing deck of the summit house when I heard a familiar aircraft engine. The plane was approaching, and I spotted it coming in from the north, below us. It went past with an un-muffled roar.

I’d know that engine sound anywhere, although it took a moment for it to register. Wasn’t expecting it in that time and place. It came from a restored World War II fighter, a P-51 Mustang. A handful of these birds still live, and I’d heard them fly by before. I knew that sound like an old friend’s voice.

I’m a bit obsessed with the story of WWII. I’ve seen about every movie and television program made concerning that war since I was a child. I have read so many books. Like driving to Wyoming in September just to hear an elk bugle, I’ve driven hours to an air show simply to hear them start up the old radial engines of a B-17 bomber, and been delighted to see and listen to the other WWII planes at the show, including a couple of P-51’s. Gave me that thrill in the pit of my stomach.

Being in the physical presence of such history, and trying to picture the men who rode these planes into danger to halt the evil that drove the other side, lends some harsh yet reassuring reality to my perceptions of the past. They are letting the kids forget this history, so someday they can repeat it. But for us older folks, and our parents who lived that history, these planes help keep it alive. And if it stays alive, maybe the next time won’t come as such a surprise.

Now something’s come up to put that thrill back into my gut. Once a year the local airport hosts a visit by a B-17, a B-24, and recently, a P-51C fighter. And you can book a ride in any of these aircraft. Which is even better than just listening to the engines start.

If you are standing on top of Mt Diablo this Sunday morning, listen for the un-muffled roar of a 70 year old Packard built Merlin V-12 engine, and look over, or maybe down. I’ll be in that silver P-51 with the red striped tail going by. This is the Mustang called Betty Jane. You should be able to recognize me by the grin. I expect it will take a crew of five a week to wipe it off my face after I land.