Day 2 was our "working out" day. Our plan was to hike Mammoth Mountain. After breakfast, we came back to park at our hotel and walk across the parking lot to the activity center to take the gondola ride.
The scenic gondola ride is $18/person for whole day pass, and our hotel had a buy 1 get 1 free promotion. Dr. Park brought his hiking sticks. At first I was laughing at him and saying who needs hiking sticks. But later I was so glad he brought them.
The gondola is only open from June to September. In the winter people have to take snow lift to go up to the mountain. The entire mountain is also a mountain bike park in the summer. 80% of the people come up for mountain biking. To hike the mountain is free, but for bikers the cost is $40/day.
The entire gondola ride takes about 15 minutes. There is one stop in the mid mountain station. But most people go up to the summit. The view on the gondola ride is really amazing.
The summit is about 11,000 feet. We could see the moon 24/7 on Mammoth mountain. Was it because we were closer to the sky?
After getting off the gondola, we hiked to the scenic lookout. I love this picture of Dr. Park. Thank Dr. Park for carrying all the water and food in his backpack so I only had to carry my little purse.
(Note to self: Do not take cute little Couch purse when hiking. It will get dirty. And there's really no point taking a purse. Yes, I am a dork!)
There are so many lakes around the mountain. On the map this was labeled as "Twin Lake" (we think?). But there were 4 lakes?? Quadruple twins?
We decided to take the Mammoth Mountain hiking trail from the summit all the way down to our hotel. The entire hike is about 5 miles long and descending about 2,000 feet. The trail wind down the backside of Mammoth Mountain and around Reds Lake.
The first mile was on pebble and sandy road. The trail was so tiny. It was pretty scary because if you slip, you would roll down the mountain.
Where were we going? Trying to get to the forest area way down there!
After 1 hour walk, we finally reached the forest. At least there was a little shade here to cool off. I couldn't walk too fast because the thin air here made it hard to breath. Also the hiking trail crosses the biking trails quite often so we had to be extra careful. Looking up to the summit, I couldn't believe we walked all the way down half way already.
Sorry. No more hiking pictures. It was was hard walking down steep hill in a tiny trail. I just couldn't take more pictures. After hiking for 3+ hours, we finally reached our destination.
This hike wasn't easy. I felt like I was about to pass out many times, but just kept on telling myself that I could do it. It felt so good when I actually did it. We conquered Mammoth Mountain!
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o.O wow.... 11,000 feet, amazing view!! I just went Malibu Creek Trail on Sun and that was "way down" there and much easier :) Glad that you had a nice vacation!!
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