Notice how completely the country has changed — pines gone, cabins gone, just sagebrush rolling down to the water and the smell, if your windows are open, of sun on resin. This high sage is its own world, and it's working country for wildlife.
This is mule deer range — the herds that summer high in the peaks behind you drift down through this basin when the snow pushes them, and this road is part of their commute. That's not trivia, it's a driving instruction: at dawn and dusk, especially in spring and fall, watch the road edges along here. A mule deer's response to headlights is not improvisational brilliance. Where you see one, expect three.
The sage itself rewards a closer look. Crush a leaf at any pullout and you get the signature scent of the high West. Between the bushes grows bitterbrush — deer candy, the reason the herds bother with this slope at all. Jackrabbits the size of terriers, coyotes working the margins, and overhead, if you're lucky, a golden eagle riding the ridge lift off the Sierra front.
It looks empty, this stretch. It's the fullest empty country you'll drive all day.
Photo: blmcalifornia · Public domain