Day 68
Start: Deer Creek
Finish: Mammoth Lakes, CA
Daily Mileage: 5.4
PCT Mile: 904.5
Another frosty night, but slept well to catch up on some of my sleep deficit. We had only 5 miles to town today, and didn’t want to get to the trailhead too early before the bus started running. We planned on a 7am start, but were ready to go by 6:30. We’re so used to the early starts that it is almost automatic now.
Even though we were at 9,000 feet and dropping, there was still mostly snow on the trail. It was the speedbumps situation again where you go up and over the snow and down to a barely visible stretch of trail and repeat over and over. A bit tiring, but the snow was hard for the most part, so not bad. And the glimpses of trail between snow drifts made it easier to stay on trail.
Some creek crossings, but stayed dry with hops, snow bridges, logs, and a couple actual bridges. All in all it was not a challenging section.
We soon came to the turnoff to Mammoth Pass. There is a 3.5 mile side trail over Mammoth Pass to a trailhead near the town of Mammoth Lakes. Right next to the Mammoth Mountain ski resort famous for the incredible amounts of snow they get each year, over 30 feet this year. And we’ve been hiking through this stuff.
The side trail quickly disappeared under snow, and it was mostly snow travel over the pass and to the trailhead. The bootpath was a bit faint and the trail was no help, so it was point and shoot for following the trail. It was icy since it was still morning, and I had to unpack my microspikes that I thought I had stowed away for the trip into town.
The way didn’t really follow the trail, but was more direct for where we needed to go which was nice. It still took time through all the snow. It did begin to soften which made for some postholing and harder travel, but town was still on the near horizon driving me on.
We made it to the pass where a hiker had written in dirt what they thought of the pass which I won’t repeat, but then it was a quick downhill through the everpresent snow to the trailhead.
The town of Mammoth Lakes has free trolleys which go all around town, and also to the trailhead we got to every hour weekdays and 30 minutes weekends, so we had a very short wait and no hitching required to get a free ride into town. Shortly we were at The Stove for a big breakfast of huevos rancheros and biscuits and gravy.
The library was unfortunately closed for maintenance for the day where we had planned to hang out until our hotel was ready for check-in, so we completed town chores instead. Mammoth Mountaineering was an excellent outfitter, the best so far on the trail. I got new hiking pole tips and they even fixed the zipper on my puffy which keeps splitting.
I got some replacement kicks at Footloose which had the exact replacement shoes I’ve been wearing. Great outfitters here and you can get almost anything you need.
We killed time and checked into Motel 6 for the night, relaxing and eating after a long and tiring stretch of trail.
3 comments
How far are you going to go? The whole stretch?
Yep, the whole thing is the goal!
Ur the shit 😀