Pulling Up Stakes: From Hometown to ‘Chinatown’

Daughter Cecily and son-in-law Mike Bryson are starting a new life, with new jobs, on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. Mike is leaving in little more than a week to a full-time position – something he has been seeking for a while – with a helicopter crew based in Independence, Calif., fighting fire for the U.S. Forest Service.

They figure they’ll look for a place to live in the bigger town of Bishop (pop. 3,800), about 40 miles north, where the Owens Valley jumps up abruptly to the higher country around Mammoth and June Lake, country that is every bit as severe and beautiful as the north side of the Sneffels Range.