Access is via a dirt road suitable for most vehicles although it should be driven slowly and carefully in low clearance cars. The site is outside the recently fenced perimeter of Manzanar National Monument. From U.S. 395, turn west on to the dirt road immediately adjacent to and north of the Manzanar compound. At the northwest corner, where the main dirt road makes a left turn toward the cemetery site and shrine, take the smaller fork straight ahead and meander toward parking at N 36 43.839, W 118 10.609. You will be next to the reservoir and just under a mile northwest of the Manzanar Virtual Cache and about the same distance from the cemetery site. A short walking tour will reveal a complex of diversion channels and gates that once provided supplementary water to the camp of 10,000. There are numerous inscriptions near the cache coordinates, many touching, placed in the drying concrete by the internees who worked on this project. Other features include excellent views of the Eastern Sierra crest as well as a grand overview of Manzanar. It was very close to this location that Ansel Adams took his famous photograph of Mount Williamson.
Gecko Dad discovered this sobering reminder of domestic World War II events during his college days, circa 1972, en route to numerous Sierra backpacks. The reservoir site was first encountered in 1977 on a fishing foray to nearby Shepherd Creek that in those days was amazingly stocked with decent sized rainbow trout from where the creek crossed Highway 395. The friendly folks who managed the Willow Motel in Lone Pine suggested the area and even froze the fish in their personal freezer for us to take home to San Diego. We later learned the motel itself was built from three relocated residential barracks from the interment camp (Ref: Camp and Community, Manzanar and the Owens Valley, Japanese American Oral History Project, California State University, Fullerton, 1977). Now renamed the Lone Pine Budget Inn, you can still see this unique vestige of the Manzanar experience one block west of the highway near the north end of Lone Pine.
To confirm your visit, please email me answers to the following questions. Please do not post to the website, even in encrypted text.
1. Which side of the reservoir is the inlet? Which side is the outlet?
2. What is spelled out in pebbles inlayed into the middle section on top of the north side of the reservoir? What is the date?
3. Near the cache coordinates, what date did Jiro sign his name? What is his last name?
4. Also near the cache coordinates and next to a long inscription in Japanese, what did Tommy say about himself?
If you have a little extra time, a visit to the exceptional Eastern Sierra Museum just up the road in Independence represents a worthwhile side trip for seeing photographs and numerous artifacts from the Manzanar interment period. Located several blocks west of the Inyo County Courthouse at 155 N. Grant Street (N 36 48.124, W 118 12.255), they are open 10:00 to 4:00 daily except Tuesdays and holidays.