Tribute to John Wayne #7 (True Grit at Hot Creek Continued)

As I have been saying over and over in the past few blogs, there is enough to know you are in the right area here, but when you really examine things a lot has changed. From the last blog, I walked up a little higher to see if I could see how the small home could have been climbed onto.
Okay.

So, just movie to right a bit should get us to where he climbed up on the top of the small home.

This is what I got out doing that.

A lot appears to be going on here. Erosion and other geological issues are probably an issue here. I kind of think there has been some man made work done here too. You can see there is a sign at the bottom that fell over. From what I can tell that dark looking rock on the far left does seem to be one that was here from the filming, but all the rest do not seem right. You can compare the other side of the river with the movie picture if you want.

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Youtube Version)

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Vimeo Version)

For the video I used the following music from Incompetech:  Americana, Crusade, and In the West.

Tribute to John Wayne #6 (True Grit at Hot Creek)

(GPS: N37 39.750 W118 49.650)

Some years back I was reading an exchange back and forth on an e-mail list about various movies filmed in California. At one point a person had mentioned True Grit, along with others, being filmed in California. One of the next messages was something like, "Oh no! True Grit was filmed in Colorado. I lived there. I have been all around California and nothing there looks like Colorado!"

When I had read that I thought, "He is for a shock. The best scene in the movie takes place in California!" Well, maybe best scene is debatable, but it does take place at Hot Creek. Certainly Colorado is a beautiful place and most of True Grit was filmed there, but for some reason they chose this place to film this scene.

This area of Hot Creek was the one I was after this particular morning. I had driven up HWY 395 almost six hours that morning. I had about another hour I had to drive before I could get to the summer home. I had been at another nearby location I may show at another time. Even though I adjust to high elevations pretty quickly, driving long periods and then walking around areas starts to get me tired. I was starting to fatigue, but I told myself that it was important I get this area then I would be done.

True Grit was what got John Wayne his Best Actor Academy Award for his potrayal of Rooster Cogburn. This scene is the one where he confronts the men in this small house. He has them "smoked out" by having the top of the chimney covered so the smoke stays inside.
In the last blog I was down below on the other side of this picture. I knew I had to do some climbing which usually is not that big of deal, but considering that I had been up since around 3am and had driven a few hundred miles the fatigue was starting to kick in.

I felt pretty good about this picture. What I call the "island barge" in the middle is the my main point of reference with the movie picture. It looks like the land next to where the house was has broken off over the years. A few rocks are the same, but like I mentioned in the last few blogs this is an area where the geological features have changed due to its environment.
In the previous blog about Nevada Smith I mentioned that Brian Keith was camping down here. This is essentially the same area used in that movie. If you watch that movie all the rock formations in the distance they show are the same. Here is John Wayne near the "island barge" confronting the men in the house.
This is the main picture I was after that day and probably my favorite.
It looks like they filmed this scene sometime around October to get that orange look. Mine has the August green look. Almost anytime of the year, except during the late summer time on a dry year, you will see snow on the mountains in the background. Usually, sometime during September or October the first snow fall will leave snow on some of the mountains.
I wanted to show the rocky cliff formations on the other side of the creek.
You can see how they have the trail that keeps one out the areas below. Look for the moon between the goal posts. ;)
What you do not see in the above pictures is there was a lot of steam coming out of the creek near where the small home was in this movie. I will show that next time.

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Youtube Version)

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Vimeo Version)

For the video I used the following music from Incompetech:  Americana, Crusade, and In the West.

Tribute to John Wayne #5 (North to Alaska at Hot Creek)

(GPS: N37 39.640 W118 49.720)

North to Alaska was another film that used this location. And, surprise, it was not filmed in Alaska. Once in a while, online, I will see this movie get the complaint it was not filmed in Alaska. Well, duh...most movies are not filmed where the story claims there are at. There are lots of reasons for this, but the bottom line is that it does not matter.

The following captures are from a television recording I took of the movie some years back. I have not watched the movie in quite some time, but if my memory is correct John Wayne and his partners had two places they were living at in Alaska. One was on one side of the river and the other was on the other with bridge between them. You can see one of the homes on the other side of the river.

From the last blog, I moved down the trail a bit below and took this picture. I added the white circle to show where it looks like the house in the above capture would have been.
This is from the movie showing the bridge and the house from close by.
The frustrating thing about Hot Creek is the fences and gated off areas around it. Had I been able to go over the roped off areas I could have gotten almost the same picture as above. The following picture should get the job done showing the above area as it is now.
The rock formation you see above in the middle of the two pictures is shown below. I just kept walking until I was parallel with it.
I kept walking past it. The fences you see were a common problem in trying to get around this area. Some areas were blocked off. I cannot remember if there was a sign further up telling me not to go any further. The area I was really after this time was behind me anyways. So, I went back.
Although you cannot see too much of it here, there was steam coming out from the other side. The sign there tells you to stay out.
So, what I got that morning for this movie's location was okay. I was satisfied. I could probably watch the movie again and figure out a little more if I really wanted to. What I was really after was the True Grit location that was filmed here. I headed back to where I came from for that. It will be what I show next time.

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Youtube Version)

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Vimeo Version)

For the video I used the following music from Incompetech:  Americana, Crusade, and In the West.

Steve McQueen at Hot Creek Location

(GPS: N37 39.730 W118 49.610) 

I thought I would interrupt my tribute to John Wayne with this since in the next blog I am going to continue with the tribute with more on this area. Hot Creek is just east of HWY 395 outside of Mammoth, CA. Movies filmed here are at a higher elevation than the ones filmed at the Alabama Hills. When I think of the Sierra Nevada I think of forests and high mountains, not deserts. The general rule I go by is anything going west of the 395 is going to have the cooler forests and mountains, but anything going east of the 395 is warmer and deserts. When I drive it I usually like looking towards the west than the east of the 395.

 

(Note: my gps readings seemed a little off when I checked the Google maps at home. Like all my gps coordinates I post they should get you really close, but it is up to you to figure out the rest. The next time I am there I will have to recheck them.)

The whole Mammoth area has a volcanically charged geological history. At Hot Creek the cooling, but HOT, magma below heats the water. The water is very warm here with lots of steam at some points. If my memory is correct, they had a bunch of signs warning that somewhere around 13-16 people have either been severely injured or died here. This was a popular area to swim at, but has been prohibited for the past few years due to the instability of the area.

 

Nevada Smith is a Steve McQueen movie that the used a lot of different Eastern Sierra locations. The movie is good, but they really did do a lot of work on trying to show different locations in the movie. This is probably my favorite one.

You may notice the rock in my picture on the right looks it has been cut in half. I am not sure what to make of that. I will say more about this below. Many, many years ago I came here, but I was much further down the creek to the west. A lot of people fly-fish that side. Although I knew of the movies that were filmed here I was not really as into the locations then. In the years after, I had a hard time visualizing where they shot the movies. For the above picture all they did was go up the road more to the east. There is a nearby parking lot. In fact, there was a road right behind me near where I shot these pictures.Steve is looking down on Brian Keith below. This rock formation was really strange to me. It really felt right, but when I looked it did not look quite right. These rock formations seemed to have changed a bit quicker over the years compared to stuff I show from the Alabama Hills. Red Rock Canyon is a little like this too. In any case, you should be able to see indentation under Steve's right arm and compare with mine.One thing I wanted to note is trying to get the right angle for how the camera was positioned to film Steve was very tough. I think the camera may have been close to where I was and zoomed in. This area he is looking down is a cliff. I had to be careful around here in where I was putting my feet. It was slightly exposed; if I were hiking I would consider this class 3 terrain. It seemed like a lot of work and risk for a camera man to film here. Steve (or his stuntman Loren James) would have dropped down right below where he was standing. There is an area to do that, maybe it was not so bad almost 45 years ago, but it not something I would want to quickly go down today.
In the next blog I will go down below. I will continue the tribute to John Wayne, but I will try to point out some more of where Nevada Smith was filmed as well. It is mostly the same areas.

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Youtube Version)

Having Grit at Hot Creek (Vimeo Version)

For the video I used the following music from Incompetech:  Americana, Crusade, and In the West.