bigbossman 

Alright - I recently returned from a glorious 5 day trip to Mammoth Lakes, on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in CA. For those of you that have visited the Owens Valley and seen the geologic wonderment firsthand - you know what I'm talking about. For those of you that haven't been there, it is about as spectacular a natural environment that one could imagine and defies description - words or pictures do not convey the awe you feel when actually seeing it with your own eyes.

Basically, what you have there is a high desert valley floor that is 7,000-8,000' in elevation, surrounded on both sides by mountain ranges with most peaks exceeding 10,000' in elevation - and indeed, many in the 11/12/13/14,000'+ category. Adding to the visual impact is the complete absence of foot hills - you stand on the valley floor and look up 1,000's of feet to the top of the range. Mt. Whitney (the highest mountain in the contiguous United States) can be found here, and there are several peaks that are just a few hundred feet shy of it's elevation. This area is geologically young, and is still very much an active work in progress. There still exists glacial remnant ice sheets, evidence of huge glacial activity, dormant volcanoes, and steam vents. Ancient craters, calderas, cinder cones, and lava flows litter the landscape as far as the eye can see. Massive granite and basalt walls seem to sweep upwards endlessly up to the sky, and creeks and lakes abound. It is a wonderful, magical place.

While this trip was a family vacation, I did bring my Palo Alto along, and did manage to log about 60 miles in between sleeping, eating, fishing, napping, more sleeping, and some hiking about. I did two rides total - the first was a nice scenic 40 mile loop through the June Lakes region with about 5,500' of climbing, and the second a mere 20 or so loop from the condo out to Hwy 395 and back with about 1,500' of elevation gained. The climbing numbers don't seem too impressive, but keep in mind the condo where I was staying was at 8,200' in elevation and the air is pretty thin up there for a sea-level creature like me.

I took over 160 photos, and it took a bit of time to post-process them for display. I picked out a few for your viewing that you might find interestng:

Road up to Convict Lake. The lighter gray Mt Morrison is in the background, standing a mere 12,268' in elevation. The little brown hill that partially obscures it is Mt McGee, at an unimpressive 10,871' in elevation:


Mt. Laurel in early morning light, from the valley floor. Adjacent to Mt. Morrison (halfway out of frame on the left), it stands 11,812' high:


11,059' tall Mammoth Mtn - a dormant volcano, world-class ski resort, and mtb mecca:


Somewhere on US 395, coming back from June Lakes, north of Deadman Summit:


From left to right - Mt. McGee, Morrison, and Laurel, with venting steam in the creek below:


Evidence of Glacial Till and end moraine. You can see the walls of rock and debris the glacier left behind as it retreated up the valley. Note the breach in the front wall, where the greenery is - must have been a heck of a flood:


Coming out of the June Lakes Loop, with Mono Lake in the distance. Doing about 35 mph:


June Lake:


Skirting Grant Lake:


High desert sky, at about 8,000' in elevation:

dcbikeguy

Wow, very nice. No hills like that around here.

You catch any fish?

ROJA

Great pics and sounds like an awesome trip- thanks for posting!

rydaddy

Nice writeup and pics! I have yet to visit Mammoth and I have lived in NorCal my entire life. Shame on me!

prendrefeu

Mammoth is active, actually. just not active in the layman sense. amazing pics, have always wanted to ride there... can't anytime soon though, broke my left forearm this past monday severely.

i now have titanium + steel framework in me though!

prendrefeu

eh... mammoth has always been more of a SoCal thing for some reason.... i think it's because the approach from the south is easier on 395 in snow conditions.

bigbossman 

Yeah - when I lived in SoCal I went there all the time. Backpacking, fishing, you name it. It is easy to get to from the south because you don't have to cross over the Sierra Nevada crest, and was easily in range for any old weekend.

If you're on the west side of the range (SF Bay Area), crossing over to the east is a pain in the summer (summer traffic, narrower winding roads at elevation), and impossible in the winter unless you fly ($$$$), cross over up by Tahoe, or down by Tehachapi/Bakersfield. I'm only 240 miles away, and best case it is a 6+ hour trip. That puts it out of range for any old weekend, and so a trip there must be planned for and executed over at least 3-4 days to make it worthwhile.

My friend that owns the condo lives in Torrance, some 340 miles away. He can get there faster than I can.

gpelpel

Beautiful photos from one of my favorite California location. I usually head to this area in early October during the Fall colors display. The Eastern Sierra is a fantastic location for photography. I have yet to bike there, I have read your High Sierra Fall Century report and want to ride it. Unfortunately it won't be this year as I have to attend a wedding in France, hopefully next year.

permanentjaun

I'm jealous.

HWS

Wow...

awiner

Georgeous pics... Are you going to do the century up there next month ? The High Sierra Fall Century ?

Surferbruce

wow, thanks so much for those pics. i spent my summers as a kid every year in mammoth. my folks own an old cabin up near the end of the road by horseshoe lake. i dream of moving abroad and i always say what i'd miss the most would be the east side of the sierras. magic place.