Bottomless Pit, Dragon's Back, and Seven Lakes Point Trail - Mammoth Lakes, CA

The guide books describe this hike as having "a view to die for" and "not so slippery as greased ball bearings", so my wife and son sent me off on my own after checking that I had paid the premium on the life insurance.

The trail head can be found in the Twin Lakes Campground near site 31.

This trail doesn't mess around.  After a quick bit of flat behind campsites 31 and 34, it starts up a series of switchbacks.  In less than 10 minutes, you're looking down on Twin Lakes.

The trail is fairly well marked, but, without my wife to navigate, I'm lucky that I made it back alive.  I did OK at the first turn, clearly marked by a post.

As the trail nears the Bottomless Pit, the view improves.

The Bottomless Pit is a sheer ravine with a hole in the bottom.  In the summer, it looks like this.

I had to stop by it on the return journey for another look under different light.

In the winter, skiers and boarders see it more like this.  http://www.mountainyahoos.com/SkiResorts/MammothMountain_Hole-In-The-Wall.html

Now, this is where the journey gets fun.  Amazed and enthralled by the terrain around the Bottomless Pit, I naturally assume the trail continues around it to give views from all angles.  Of course, I do not see the much easier trail that is right behind me and clearly marked until the return journey.

So, instead of taking the "Easy Trail", or the "More Demanding" trail, I take the "Wrong Trail".

After a quick scramble around the Pit, and a second scramble up the side of the mountain above, I fortunately rejoin the main trail just before the section described as having "views to die for" and "not so slippery as greased ball bearings".   From the bottom, this short section of trail looks fairly benign.

Just past the midpoint, I was glad that I wasn't walking the crest of a ridge.  The mountainside full of large, loose rock hanging above me was comforting compared to the slide to my right.

I was happy to begin climbing up the switchbacks to the Dragon's Back overlook.  Looking back, the entire section of trail through the scree looks like this.

From here, it is a short, sharp climb up to fantastic views that stretch as far as Boundary Peak in the White Mountains of Nevada.

Turning your back on this view, one last scramble up the dragon's spine, and you arrive at Seven Lakes Point.  The name comes from the fact that you can see lakes George, Mary Jane, Mamie, Horseshoe, the pair of Twin Lakes, and TJ.

Leaving the magnificent views behind, the trail continues to its peak where Mammoth Mountain and its ski slopes and bike trails can be seen.

After a quick look over the resort and a moment to appreciate the fact that there are still snow drifts up here on September 1st, it's back into the woods for a leisurely walk down the "Easy Trail".  Once again, the trail is clearly signposted, so I avoided the wrong turn that would have taken me up Mammoth Mountain instead of down to Twin Lakes.

The easy trail is just that - a nice walk down through the woods.

It is also clearly sign-posted for my benefit.

We'll end this post with a puzzle.  In the next picture, who is going to win - the boulder or the pine tree?   You might need to double-click it to see the tree, but it looks very healthy considering its position.  Truly an example of making the most of the hand that life deals you.

If you need a closer look, here it is:



Convict Lake Trail and the Restaurant at Convict Lake - Mammoth Lakes, CA

The Convict Lake Trail is just down the road from Mammoth Lakes, and it offers the reward of a restaurant at the end of the trail!

The parking area sneaks up on you as you drive up Convict Lake Road.  There was plentiful parking at the trail head, and no sign of the restaurant or lake.  However, we did spot a family of deer - a buck, a doe, and two fawns - nibbling the grass near to the parking lot!  My wife managed to get the buck and two fawns in this picture after wrestling the camera away from our son, who was busy taking pictures of his shoes when the doe popped up out of the brush about eight feet away and proceeded to hop up the hill and out of sight.

The trail is narrow but easy with only about 250 feet in elevation gain/loss over 3 miles.

After a short walk up the hill, it quickly descends to the lakeside and circles the lake with almost no elevation change.

These pictures really don't even come close to reflecting the color of the water.  It is crystal clear and a bright blue-green in the shallows, and a sapphire blue where it gets deep.  I failed to bring the "good camera" on this walk, so we ended up using an old Canon PowerShot 870 (which still takes much better pictures than our newer Canon or either the iPhone or Droid), but it is no match for the Olympus E-300 that I received as a going-away present just prior to this trip.

There are a ton of activities to be had in this beautiful bowl surrounding one of the deepest lakes in the High Sierra.  You can fish from the banks or from rented canoes, kayaks, or motor boats.  You can hike or jog on the trails.  There are cabins, a general store, and a campground, and horses available for hire.  It would be easy to spend an entire vacation here with Mammoth Lakes and all the Eastern Sierra has to offer just up the road.  There is even a wheelchair-accessible fishing pier!

 

 After the three-mile walk around the lake, you can reward yourself with a meal or a cocktail from the Restaurant at Convict Lake.  The setting is beautiful for outside seating, and the decor inside is also fantastic while in keeping with the resort.

The service was friendly, fast, and fantastic.  The food quality ranged from good to a bit over-cooked, but we wouldn't hesitate to come back again.  We started with the curried carrot soup, which was delicious...as usual, it was so good that I couldn't keep the natives out of it before taking the picture.

I thoroughly enjoyed the fish tacos, which were good (but, alas, Roberto's in Mammoth still retains the crown for having a taco that has more fresh vegetables inside than creamy sauce, and at a crazy bargain price at happy hour).

My wife went with the special, a chicken sandwich topped with cheddar, avocado, and bacon.  It was tasty, but slightly charred.  Yes, there is some bacon missing, as our son grabbed a slice like a starving Rottweiler before I could take the picture.

Our son, as usual, went for the cheeseburger.  Again, not bad, but also a bit on the over-cooked side.  We've got to get him back on a healthy diet!

Finally, we indulged in the grasshopper pie for dessert, and it was fantastic!

Beautiful Beaches at McLeod Lake - Mammoth Lakes, CA

At the top of Lake Mary Road, the Horseshoe Lake parking area provides access to the Mammoth Pass trail head.  McLeod Lake is a short 1/2-mile jaunt up the trail (one way), while you can continue on through Mammoth Pass to Red's Meadow if you walk about 3.5 miles.

We've seen a number of lakes that were beautiful but didn't exactly beckon you to jump in for a swim.  All of them had us swatting away mosquitoes constantly.  In contrast, McLeod Lake left us wishing we had come earlier in the day with a beach towel and a picnic!

After a walk around the lake, we found a sunny rock that was about the same shape as a lounge chair!

Here's my impression of how a couple of tourists look to a bear.

Ancient Bristlecone Forest - Methuselah Walk, Shulman Grove - Inyo National Forest

Just up the White Mountain Road from Grandview Campground is the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest and the Methuselah Walk.

The Methuselah Walk begins just behind the temporary visitor center, with the new center under construction and scheduled for opening in the summer of 2012.

Yes, that photo is a joke, the construction noise is not bad and disappears when you round the corner heading up the trail.

The Methuselah Walk is a bit over 4 miles.  It starts around 10,000 feet elevation, drops to around 9,600 feet, then climbs back up in a loop to rejoin the trailhead, making for about 800 feet in total elevation change.  The trail is well-maintained and has a few steep stretches but is, for the most part, an easy hike.

The walk is self-guided, and a full-color booklet is available at the trailhead.  The numbered trail markers correspond to entries in the booklet, and each stop provides educational insight into the life of a bristlecone pine.  In addition, each page also offers unique facts about the White Mountains and the flora and fauna of the forest.

As you begin to appreciate just how old the trees surrounding the trail are, a sense of wonder and amazement envelops you.  Our son is a huge history buff, and for him, it was a chance to imagine what the trees might have heard "through the grapevine", so to speak.  In the picture below, he is channeling Ramses II at the Battle of Kadesh.

Linking the trees to history, if only in our imagination, really made the hike come to life.





This was my personal favorite tree - dubbed the "angry ent".

A bit past the half-way point, you enter the grove where Shulman located a bristlecone pine whose age he estimated at almost 4,700 years!

Grandview Campground - Inyo National Forest

Grandview Campground offers some of the best star gazing outside of standing on top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.  The campsites are fairly well-dispersed, so your neighbors aren't right on top of you in most spaces.  Most offer some shade, provided by numerous pine trees, but be aware that after a heavy winter like this year, the pines are so happy that it rains sap, and everything underneath them will be showered with tiny, fast-drying dots of sap and larger globs of the sticky stuff.  There is at least one picnic table and a fire ring in each of the developed sites.  The campsites at the east end of the grounds have plenty of room for RVs, and seem to be favored by the astronomers.  Show a little consideration, and if you see a campground with a telescope set up, don't light up that campfire at night in the spot next door!  You know there are a lot of stars when a guy with no special knowledge or equipment can stick his camera on a tripod, point it sort of in the direction of the Big Dipper (as I couldn't see squat through the viewfinder - the light coming from the menu on the view screen completely blinded me and I had no idea how to turn it off), and hold the shutter open for 30 seconds and actually get an image.

While there were more than a dozen campsites occupied there this week, Grandview was still extremely quiet at night - no loud music, no shouting drunks (just a couple of quiet ones, gazing in wonder at the stars), no late-night vehicle traffic, and no barking dogs.  More importantly, there were no mosquitoes, which made camping there a real pleasure after some of the heavy swarms we've encountered in the Eastern Sierras.  The absolute lack of water and dry, dusty environment of the White Mountains does have its advantages!

Speaking of water, there is none at Grandview.  Load up with as much as you can carry before you come, and then add another 5 - 10 gallons to put out your fire!  I was amazed at how fast, how hot, and how long the downed pine wood gathered here burns.  Near sea level in Florida, it would take a good-sized pile of kindling and a lot of huffing and puffing to boil a Kelly Kettle full of water to make coffee.  At Grandview, it took one handful of twigs and a single spark.  The pine exploded into flame, burned hotter than any pine I've ever used, and didn't turn immediately to ash but instead held the flame far longer than a typical Florida slash or longleaf pine.

Between the dry climate and the highly flammable trees and duff covering the ground, please be extremely careful with your fires at Grandview and bring that extra water mentioned to put them out.

There are a plethora of pit toilets, some of which give off a delightful citrusy smell and have newer plastic seats in a unisex design, and others which have separate men's and women's stalls, stainless steel toilets, and a smell that will knock you down when you open the door.  It seemed like there was a toilet for every two or three campsites, so you'll never want for a room full of flies at this campground! 

Lest I forget, Grandview has more than its share of black flies.  If you've ever lived next to a cow pasture, you'll feel right at home.  While they are an annoyance, I'll take flies over blood-thirsty, biting insects any day!  They also make for an interesting learning experience for our son, the "homework torture table".  This involved sitting at the picnic table at the height of the fly-hour in the afternoon, surrounded like King Kong by buzzing dive bombers, while concentrating on doing school work that was supposed to be done the day before.  The homework torture table makes boot camp look like a walk in the park, but the work was completed accurately, and I'm sure his concentration skills have been honed to a fine point.

The Marmot Tent performed well, and due to the sap showers, I left the rain fly on the entire time.

The biggest animal we saw was a jackrabbit.  There are no bear lockers, so you'll have to devise your own method of keeping your food from the wild animals, should any happen to wander through your campsite.

Dinner at Grandview was salmon poached with a blueberry compote...camp food ain't what it used to be!

Finally, if you're looking for blazing Internet or even a working cell phone, Grandview is not the place for you.  However, if you head down the road to the scenic overlook on White Mountain Road, and walk up the path and sit on the bench with a view of West Bishop, adequate 3G speed is available from Verizon to pull about 7Mb of e-mail in 3 minutes, and the AT&T iPhone also had 3G service, albeit a bit slower.  Here's a picture of my office.