Bodie State Park
Bodie State Historic Park is about 25-miles north of Mono Lake, the last 10-miles along a dirt road that can be somewhat rough. Although the park is open from about mid-March, the road may be closed to regular vehicle traffic due to snowpack. Oversnow equipment is necessary and required to reach the park during early spring—call the park and check road conditions online. Mid-summer is the perfect time to visit this sprawling ghost town.
As many as 10,000 people once lived here on this harsh, cold, windswept, plain. They toiled in search of a better life lured by the promise of gold. As quickly as the town boomed in the 1880s, it declined less than two decades later and by the early 1900s it was declared a ghost town. Of the 2,000 buildings that made up this once prosperous western gold-mining town, now only about 110 structures still stand in a picturesque state of arrested decay. It is said to be one of the best-preserved ghost towns in the western USA.
Bodie, CA
(760) 616-5040
