Arrival Sunday, August 9
339 Miles | 7 Hours
We take the scenic route past Death Valley and up through the hills where the bristlecone pines have lived for thousands of years, over route 168. It’s a winding road with grades that exceed 8% in multiple spots both going up and coming down the mountain but the Audi and the Gypsy are up to the task, nimbly navigating the narrow passages and we keep the engine strong and the brakes fresh by staying in the lower gears most of the way.
The view is spectacular as we wind through some of the oldest living trees on earth, and there is a special feeling of coming home as we cross the California border after conquering the climb.
We grab food at a rustic fixture in Bishop called The Burger Barn and continue our ascent up to Mammoth, watching the vegetation change to granite and conifers as we climb. We don’t have a confirmed reservation as everything we checked was booked, but we have a moonshot plan that we hope will work as we pull into town with evening quickly approaching.
After triple checking and calling several of the campgrounds we had researched to confirm they are indeed still booked, we circle around to a public campground called New Shady Rest, a state park with about 100 sites winding amongst the pines. We find a First Come, First Serve site that is only occupied by a tent but has ample room in the paved portion to accommodate a trailer and decide to approach the campers there to see if they’ll consider sharing their site, and we'd be willing to compensate for the evening.
Trouble is, they’re out and about so we decide to wait in their driveway for them to return and busy ourselves catching up on work after the 7 hour trip, making use of the 2 bars of LTE reception we get at the site.
One hour turns in to two until at last, three hours later they finally return. Unfortunately, they want no part of our plan so we pull out and instead resort one more time to “Gypsy docking” in a reserved spot which is only a few sites down the trail. It appears whomever booked it for the 1-night reservation hasn’t shown up so we pull in, and try to sleep, knowing we may get a knock on our door. We finally get to sleep at around 11:00, staying on the bumper just in case the site’s rightful owners show up in the middle of the night.
Thankfully we get a full night’s sleep, and by 7am the next the morning Mari takes off in the Audi to scope out any first some first serve sites that may be coming available--and have good LTE.
Mari ends up getting extra diligent in scoping and finally scoring arguably the best campsite of our entire trip at the nearby Old Shady Rest campground, set on a full level quarter acre under the tall Ponderosa canopy and backing up to a mountain on BLM land with a scenic trail that leads to town with an occasional jogger or mountain biker passing by in the distance. Plus she's stoked because the LTE is strong enough for a day's worth of Webex calls.
We learn that the deal with these sites is that you can stay as long as 2 weeks once you have claimed one, so we decide to stay a few extra days to enjoy our visit in style. We befriend the family next door, Tim and Kate, a couple of teachers from Santa Barbara who are camping their with their two boys plus a friend’s kid. It turns out he grew up in Mammoth and this is where he likes to camp. They've already made friends with the camp host and have been camping here under alternating names for 7 weeks and loving it.
And they’re mountain bikers to boot. Tim and his 10-year old son take Datta up to Mammoth for the day and give him a personal tour of the mountain, which is indeed Mammoth like its namesake, towering at over 11,500’ feet at the peak and plunging over 4000’ of decent much of it through groomed ramps, banks and jumps, with other portions that are simply rugged mountainside of crumbling clay that Tim describes as “riding the kitty litter” where you just have to hang on and keep your front wheel pointing downhill to stay up.
The black diamond and double black diamond runs they take Datta down all have blue options available when a gap jump is encountered on the course, and the lid chairs and tram take away the work of peddling uphill, leaving you fresh to tackle the considerable challenges that await you as you navigate your way down the mountain.
The day gets cut short by a lightning warning but it’s been a thoroughly satisfying ride nonetheless and there is a whole lot more mountain to explore the next time we come back.
Back at the camp Sibri has made friends with their kids and they take turns swinging on a giant rope swing hanging from the biggest tree on our site that the dads collaborated together to create.
We explore the town and find good food and friendly people, and enjoy some of the best weather of the trip as well.
Departure Wednesday, August 13
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