Buttermilk Canyon is not a canyon. Rather, it is a dirt road that rides along a wide plate below Mountains Tom and Basin. It starts off being pretty nice, albeit a bit on the wash board side and slowly becomes almost impossible to impassable, for us at least. It was named Buttermilk after the dairy trucks that used to used it to carry dairy products to mining town and into Bishop. The milk would bounce so much that local legend says the road would churn fresh milk into buttermilk. Alongside the bumpy road a photographer will appreciate a vast expanse of high desert, magnificent mountains, giant boulders, and an occasional creek. Recreation is king here for mountain bikers, hikers and boulder scrambling. Campers abound with motor homes to tents. The rent, we were told by one camper, "Is pretty cheap". We were not able to complete the full loop. We came to that 'place in the road' that said 'turn around and go back'.