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The House of the Devil

A visit to Casa Diablo Mountain

Casa Diablo Mountain is located within the Long Valley Caldera near Mammoth Lakes, California. It consists of giant boulders that remind me of the boulders at Joshua Tree National Park. Just like Joshua Tree National Park Casa Diablo Mountain is a popular spot for rock climbers.

Casa Diablo Mountain as seen from the Buttermilks

We - my wife, daughter, brother-in-law and I - visited it near sunset after our visit to the stone columns at Crowley Lake, only a couple of miles away. Most of the roads here are unpaved and several roads lead to the foot of the mountain. At some point we had to turn around and find another way because the road was too narrow while all kinds of bushes were scratching the side of our RAV4.

The tiny white dot at about 1/3 from the right and bottom is our car. The snow-capped peaks of the Eastern Sierra dominate the background

We did find a better path and parked as close as we could get to it on the west side. Nobody else was around. Because it was getting colder my wife and daughter decided to stay in the car, while my brother-in-law and I took out Rolf, my drone.

I flew towards the mountain and when I rose above it, a beautiful rising full moon revealed itself over the White Mountain range in the east:

Full moon over the White Mountain range from Casa Diablo Mountain

As my DJI Mavic 3 drone has two cameras, I also captured a close up of the moon over the mountain range:

A full moon that just arose over the White Mountain range

And here is a shot of the moon taken between the two peaks of Casa Diablo Mountain:

The full moon between the two Casa Diablo Mountain peaks

Before our trip back to Bishop, I took a shot of the tallest peak of Casa Diablo Mountain, while looking straight down. This shows the massive size of the boulders:

The massive boulders on Casa Diablo Mountain

Here, Rolf was about 400 feet above the peak. The green splotches near the top of the photo are pine trees and they (plus the altitude Rolf was at)  give a good sense of the massiveness of the boulders.

The drive back to town was quite uneventful, although it was a bit of a challenge driving in the dark on an unpaved road that had some rain damage.

Our drive back to Bishop