The Haystack

Situated only a few miles east of the town of Lone Pine, a town semi-famous for the movies filmed near it and for being at the base of Mt Whitney, is a hill commonly referred to as the Haystack. This hill is the next most popular place to spot on Sidewinder after Fairview Ridge. Situated in Owens Valley, the Haystack has the Inyo range directly to the east of it with its layered rock and the towering peaks of the High Sierras a few miles to the west. This makes the Haystack a very scenic place to spot from.

Where is this spot?

No matter what direction you come from (north or south), you will have a short drive on unpaved/not well maintained roads. That being said, you do not need an offroading vehicle to get here. Sedans can easily get here, but will be limited by speed and may have to be more careful navigating bumps and dips.

To start off, navigate to the pin to the right on a computer and below on mobile. It is the intersection of Owenyo-Lone Pine Road and the dirt road that leads to the Haystack. Generally Google Maps will direct people to come from the south. It doesn't matter which way you come from and neither way is necessarily faster. Note that it can be easy to miss turns so be sure to have a GPS running if it's your first time here. Thanks to the town of Lone Pine being close by, there is pretty good data/LTE here.

From the intersection follow the dirt road over the dry lakebed and turn off at what looks roughly like a bus stop (red path). If the dry lakebed isn't dry (aka actually a lake) take the yellow path. A pin is provided to the bus stop.

From here, you hike and scramble up the hill. Unfortunately it’s hard to show the route up/down from a picture of the hill. The rough outline of the hike is in the picture to the right on computer and below on mobile. From the parking area circled, follow the wash up the hill. At a certain point, you will come to a landing (it's very a very obvious large flat area). If you find yourself hiking/scrambling at a decent pace for over a half an hour, you've probably gone too far. Once at the landing or once you've been hiking/scrambling for a while, you can either cut west or east depending on how you want to situate yourself. All this being said, this spot is pretty popular now, so it may be possible to follow boot prints up. Note that this hike isn't to the top of the hill. You don't need to be at the top of the hill to be above low passes.

***IMPORTANT*** There is no trail here and scrambling up this hill can be quite treacherous. You may find yourself in places where you have to get over a large boulder or at a large drop off. When in doubt, back track and try a different path. If you’re familiar with climbing grades, this scramble is roughly class 2, but you can easily find yourself in class 3 areas or even doing a boulder problem!

Spotting Logistics from here

Since this spot is past Point Charlie, a good number of jets will exit the Sidewinder before they get to you or take the Jedi Transition. From my experience, around half of the jets that fly Sidewinder will fly the entire route (and hence make it up to you at Point Delta).

From this spot, you will hear a lot on scanner. You can hear the Joshua Approach controller and some jets. For every jet that flies Sidewinder, they get cleared onto Sidewinder by Joshua Approach. The radio call will sound like:

"*Insert Callsign* radar services terminated, change to low level frequency approved."

From this point, it takes roughly 10-15 minutes for the jets to get to Point Charlie. For the jets that do fly the whole route, they dive out of the Sierras and hit Point Charlie on the west side on Owens Valley.

Since the valley is long and flat, you should have no trouble hearing the jet call Charlie on scanner. The jets will then cut east across Owens Lake towards you at Point Delta. It takes roughly 2-3 minutes for jets to get between Point Charlie and Point Delta. You will start to see them as they fly over Owens Lake as they approach you from the south and fly north.

Since there isn't really a choke point here, jets will take any route around or over the Haystack (yes I've seen jets fly sky high over the Haystack). I haven't really noticed a pattern in terms of who flies to the east and who flies to the west of the Haystack. I would say a little over half of the passes are to the west. In recent days, it seems like the local guys fly on the "correct" side of the Haystack for lighting. It is also of note that passes to the west can be quite far away from the Haystack. Jets can fly miles or more to the west of the Haystack.

You do want to set up for passes to the west or east. Passes to the west will have the Alabama Hills in the background if jets are low and far or the High Sierras in the background if they're a bit higher. Passes to the west, close to the Haystack, and low will have a desert-like background. Passes to the east will have the Inyo Range in the background. Generally what I do is set up for passes to the west in the morning and then start migrating to more of a central position for the afternoon at around 10:45. I usually don't go all the way to the eastern side of the Haystack since it is quite a long scramble/hike. I usually just scramble/hike to the landing/the point where I am directly over my car, but for an optimal setup it is best to get to the eastern edge.

Since this spot is so close to the town of Lone Pine, you will probably have good enough data/LTE to stream. This fact combined with the fact that you have excellent situational awareness from your scanner means that you don't have to constantly keep an eye out for jets here. That being said, the shear amount of radio traffic on Joshua Approach means that you won't hear every pass on the low level frequency. It isn't a terrible idea to have scanners on set to the low level frequency, but I have also yet to miss passes here since I always hear the jets cleared onto low level by Joshua Approach.

Lighting

During the times closer to winter, you'll be looking into the sun to try and find jets approaching you. The closer you are to winter, the less time passes to the west will have good light on them. Light can start to shift as early as 10:30AM in the winter months with jets getting more tailit before backlit. Closer to the summer, jets will become more toplit to the west. It takes until the early afternoon for jets to be fully backlit to the west.

Passes to the east can start to have sun on them as early as 10AM. This is because as jets pass to the east, they bank towards you to get through the gap between the Haystack and the Inyo Range. Starting at around 11AM, jets will be well lit.

Pros and Cons

Pros of Spotting Here:

You'll get excellent cell service here due to promixity to Lone Pine. I can easily stream youtube/tv shows from here
This spot is relatively accessible by car even though some of it is off road, also the hike is relatively easy compared to other spots
This is one of the spots you can reliably get shots of jets with snow in the background during the winter and spring with the High Sierras being snowcapped
There is a variety of angles and backgrounds available here depending on the pass (desert and mountain backgrounds available here)
You have a clear line of sight to the jets as they approach you from Point Charlie. As such, scanners have no problem picking up transmissions on the low level frequency and on frequencies in the R-2508 in general

Cons of Spotting Here:

It can be very dangerous scrambling up and down boulders at this spot
You’re often looking into the sun to find jets approaching you
Lighting is generally awkward and not ideal during the whole 11AM bank
As pointed out earlier, you’re limited to setting up for passes to the west of the hill or to the east of the hill. Setting up for the east means that passes to the west can be obscured quite early and vice versa. The bigger problem is focal length as you can see by the sample shots below. If a jet is passing a side that I’m not set up for, I will always be maxed out on my focal length (900 mm)
Jets are unpredictable as to whether or not they’ll pass the east or west side of the hill, from my experience it’s roughly a 50/50 split between passes to the east and west. This can be frustrating.

Sample Shots

Pass to the West

Pass to the west (set up for the west), 900mm plane fills half frame, 9:05AM spring

Pass to the west (set up for the west), 900mm plane fills half frame, 9:50AM spring

Pass to the west (set up for the west), 400mm, plane fills full frame, 10:30AM spring

Pass to the west (set up for the west), 900mm plane fills thrid frame, 11:20 spring

Pass to the East

Pass to the east (set up for west), 900mm plane fills quarter frame, 10:30AM spring

Pass to the east (set up in the middle), 900mm plane fills third frame, 2:55PM spring

Pass to the east (set up for east), 800mm plane fills full frame, 10:45AM winter

Pass to the east (set up in the middle), 900mm plane fills half frame, 3:15PM spring

Return to Sidewinder Low Level

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse