Sno, Sno, and Mo Sno !

We arrived in Mammoth Lakes last Thursday about 2pm, got settled in and let the owner know we were here. The weather was looking good and when Derek, the owner, came down off the mountain about 5 he came by and we finally got to meet him. Great guy, enjoys a good beer, being outside, Mtn biking and working hard. We agreed that I would meet  him at 8am Friday morning and he would have a crash course with the snowmobile and then meet the crew that would be digging out the cabins at 9am. We would take them up to the cabins and he would show me around. Sounded good to me! (Course, I hadn't been on a snowmobile before, being from the south) We went for a test spin up to the cabins and back, about 2 miles, and came back down to get the diggers.We loaded up with two guys each, 3 on each snowmobile, and took off. The ride was different with 3 but all went well and after dropping them off I went back and got the last guy. Derek took a couple of hours showing me the property layout as best as possible, there was about 10 ft of snow with drifts 15+ ft, and then he took off for home. His son was in a CA mtn bike championship Saturday and he wanted to be there. (Great guy/Dad!) We worked hard until 2pm and met back on Saturday to work from 9am-2pm again. I was amazed at how hard these men worked, some of the holes down to the water shut offs and front doors were 8-12' deep. You have to cut steps into the wall to get out! I took the camera both days but unfortunately/fortunately I was too busy to take pics. Saturday when I arrived back home the other two couples had gotten here and settled in. The weather in Mammoth Lakes is a lot different than up on the mountain, up there it is about 10 degrees colder and the snow dumps there before it  gets past the mountain to the town. Sunday I was to meet the men again but it snowed Saturday night pretty hard so we cancelled work Sunday and we would all go up Monday morning, Derek was due back in town then. After Derek got the diggers working we all met for brunch to break bread and mingle. This was the first time Derek had met the third couple, Harry and MaryJo. H and MJ are from the north so snow is familiar to them so it looks like the team will jell just fine. Mo and I stopped and got gas for the snowmobiles and the rest went on up. Derek met us after he took them up and shuttled Mo and I up. This was the first time Mo had been to the cabins and the first time on a snowmobile. She was excited to start this leg of our adventure. Pam showed Mo and MarJo what they do and Tom showed Harry and I our jobs. We all have a big challenge ahead of us if we are to get open by Memorial Day. The diggers were redigging out the doors and water shutoffs, fortunetly it was a powder snow so it moved quickly and easily. We started about noon and at about 4pm it was snowing again. we called it quits about 5pm, it was snowing like crazy and windy. Where we're staying in Mammoth Lakes there is a hot tub and swimming pool. As soon as we got back home we changed into our suits, got our beverage of choice and met at the hottub. We all were cold and sore from the first day trudging in the snow.
It continued to snow all night and then all day on Tuesday. We went up Tuesday morning to the top of the road but the new snow was so deep and it was still snowing, that we called work off. There was so much new snow That all the snowmobile tracks were covered , the snowmobiles were covered 1/2 way up and I stepped in a drift that came to my waist. We would have had to plow a new path to the cabins through about 16" of fresh snow, and again, it was still snowing! Back home we went, it snowed all day yesterday, Tuesday, and all night. we woke to fresh snow covering the motorhome, Jeep and everything. Today, Wednesday 10am, it's now 40 degrees and melting so we hope to head up the mtn at 1pm and try to get to the cabins. Here's a few pics that Mo has taken;

This deer just came walking up to the motorhome about 15 minutes after we got parked and set up. It was as if she were welcoming us to Mammoth Lakes. We figured it was better then a bear!

This was Monday evening when we got back.

Tuesday morning

This is the "road" up to the cabins. The plowed road stops here, this is where we start the snowmobile trip up. The road is actually about 7 feet under the snow. Oops, WAS about 6-7', probably 10 ' now?

 This is what we woke up to this morning but now, at 10am, it's about 40 degrees so it will melt quickly here.

Looking up the parking lot this morning, I hurried back inside, it was coolldd!










We'll try and take some pictures up at the cabins today so check back tomorrow. We miss you all, hug each other from us.

An Abreviated Post.......

Today is May12th, Thursday, and I had planned to do a recap of our stay in Bishop tonight, but yesterday we got a call from the Lodge owner and asked if we could possibly start a couple of days early. Today we're packing up and moving up to Mammoth Lakes, CA. This is actually good, Mo and I both are ready to get back to work.

What I'm going to do is post some pics with a very brief comment and this will probably be the last post for a week or so.

On Tuesday we drove up to Mammoth Lakes to check the thrift store for snow clothes. There was a 30-40% chance of rain in Bishop and as we left town the clouds to the north, over ML were pretty dark. The forcast for there was light snow and rain mix. No problem. We got off the Hwy 395 onto the road to Mammoth Lakes and the first flakes of snow started hitting the windshield. When we came out of the thrift store it was snowing pretty good. We didn't expect much so we decided to get a burger before heading back.

Here's what it looked like when we came out, we'd only been in town about an hour and a half!

Looking around the parking lot, Mo took this shot. We were flippin!

She snapped this shot trying to show the snow on me but I had brushed some off before getting in.

As we're leaving the parking lot we realized it was sure enough snowing!

We started for Bishop before it got to bad, we figured it would quit when we got back to Hwy 395.

Well, It didn't! This is on the Hwy back. In some areas you couldn't see the car in front of you. When we got to the pass, The one where I came out of the trail run, it not only was snowing but it started hailing pea size hail. So now we had snow on the road and hail bouncing around!

 We made it back just fine and Bishop had even gotten a little rain.
Well cking the camera, these were the last pictures we had taken, so no more pics in our Bishop CA album. Now I had better get Mo from her book because we need to get packed up to head for Mammoth Lakes where we'll stay in the city for 3-4 weeks as we dig out the lodge and cabins, fix and repair as needed, stock them with sheets, towels etc and be ready to open on Memorial Day.

05/09/11

Today is Monday 05/09/11.
Last Thursday we went up to Mammoth Lakes to see the city with Tom and Pam, the main Lodge Hosts. We wanted to visit a second hand store they knew of for some snow clothes and boots that we could work in. The town was the typical ski resort town with condos and homes and lots of stores to cater to the vacationing skiers. Tom and Pam showed us all the good places to shop and eat, where we could get good deals known to the locals and a store that takes used clothing, ski stuff, furniture and most anything and all proceeds go to the local hospital. The stuff was CHEAP! Mo and I bout 3 pair of ski pants, snow boots for Mo and 3 pair of gloves for $25.00. A good start, still a few more things to get though, so we decided to check back the next week.  After that we went up the road as far as we could heading for the Crystal Crag Lodge.
Here's a few pics of when we got to the end of the road...

Here is the 'end' of the road, or as far as was plowed. Actually, it has melted some here, once it is plowed and the sun can get to it, it melts more quickly.

This is Tom standing next to the plow cut. The Lodge is still about 2 miles further up the road.

This is looking up the mtn to Tom's right.

There's rules for everything, I guess.

This is deceiving, the snow doesn't look deep but that's actually a sheer drop off!

Last week, after I ran the Rock Creek trail, Mo and I thought we were going to hike the Lower Rock Creek trail on Friday but as it turned out, we decided to go up to an area that is world widely know for boulder climbing. It's about 8-10 miles west of Bishop so we got our water, camera, map and GPS and took off.  You access the area by a washboard dirt road that is wide and well used. This was a weekday so we didn't expect to much activity, here's a few pictures.....

We started seeing these rock formations and thought this would be it, but, it wasn't.

It sure did look like some good rocks to climb and maybe they were climbed but not that day.

THIS was a big rock, sitting all by itself. the one behind it looks like it broke off but when you look at them, they don't fit. That's me standing at the base to give some perspective to the size. We stopped here because there were cars parked at the road, however we only got a glimpse of someone walking up to this rock.

These boulders looked like they could just roll right on down the hill, and I guess that's what they did a long time ago.

These are actually beautiful white flowers covering this bush right at the base of the boulder.

We found these two guys working the back of the boulder.

The guy in the orange would start out sitting on the ground and then climb as far as he could, hanging upside down at times, falling off time after time. Never did see him get much over 10' high.

They have a pad under the one climbing and the spotter stays close by to break the fall.

More flowers blooming in the desert around the boulders.

We turned around when we heard some voices and there was this guy on top of another boulder. He jumped over to the other smaller on, there was a gap of about 5-8 ft between them.

Still trying...........

we moved up the hill to watch these two guys, they were a bit more experienced, and older. They sounded like they were speaking Italian.

They were holding onto the rock with fingertips and toes......

After they got to a point, it seemed they just about ran up the rock.

Mr Lizard

We decided to move along and see what else was around, we knew the road went back up into the White Mtns and eventually came back out on the Hwy so why not?

We stopped along side the road and Mo took this shot of a meadow full of flowers. This is about 6,000' high.

This 'road' got rougher and rougher. We went through rocky areas and then muddy areas, desert and forest. Here we forded a creek that came up to the bottom of the doors. I think this was the third creek, the others were smaller, thank goodness!

Looking back down over where we came from.

Some of the views, as you will see, were incredible.

Here we're almost to the end and riding on a ridge about 15' wide, straight down on both sides. Across the way (south) there was a straight road that went to that beautiful meadow at the base of the mountain, maybe a horse pasture?

Here's the ridge road, you could look right or left and see for miles!

These were the mtns looking right, south.

These were looking left, north. The rock mtn in the center of the picture is Grouse Mtn, we came all the way around it from the other side, that's where the boulders were.

 We finally came down off the ridge by way of switch backs to the hwy. We had a great time exploring and seeing more of God's amazing planet Earth.
 Saturday we walked all over town, one of the great things about Bishop, and shopped all the thrift stores for more cheap cold weather work clothes. We found a few more and decided we'd go back up to Mammoth next week, that store there had some nice stuff, cheap. There also was a home show, gem show and other events here at the Fairground where we're staying so we walked around it. They had a huge flea market but it cost to enter so we nixed it. Mo spent time with Pam learning the reservation program, of course she caught on real quick, which Pam appreciated. They will work well together.
Mass at 4pm here on Saturday.
Sunday we decided to ride out and see the Petroglyphs. They are ancient symbols and pictures carved into the lava rocks that flowed here many centuries ago. Some have been vandalized but recently they have come under the protection of the Park service and heavy fines and jail time are in force now for removing, or tampering with them.

Don't know if you can make it out but this whole rock is covered with lines and drawings

This one shows up a little better. there were more but it was real windy, this whole area is called a volcanic tableland. Lots of the rocks are volcanic lava flow that hardened after it cooled and it left weirdly shaped rocks and formations.

Here's a couple of pictures.....

There was lots of these formations all around this area, some of the holes were deep, they would go back into the rock a couple of feet, seemed like a good place for a rattle snake!
Since it was windy we figured we would just explore from the comfort of the Jeep. Mo was driving and we found a good road turning off and took off across country. We didn't know where we were going but we had the GPS so we weren't worried.
Here we go.......

The road we took off on was a desert double track, just wide enough for a 4WD. there was desert all around us with lots of wild flowers blooming out. Mo was driving and I don't take as many pictures as she does but I tried to get a few good ones.

These are trying to show the yellow flowers in the foreground but also on the hillside in the distance. That was the predominate bloom.

Looking at the Mtns in the distance, that's a canyon between. It's hard to show a canyon in a picture!

These orange ones were pretty, there were also purple and white ones.

This picture is out of place but it is one of some more petroglyphs. To far away to see them though.

Looking out over a canyon. The Jeep road was following this canyon, on the GPS it showed the road somehow getting past it and ending up back on hwy 395, so we kept on going.

We came from the base of those mtns.

Well the road dead ended at the canyon. We got out and walked over and looked down into the canyon, it was dry and narrow along the bottom. Someday we'll come back and explore the bottom some.

The dead end road.

 So we turned around and backtracked to the main road and, undeterred, we found another one further down and off we go again. Mo was having a good day, it was Mothers Day after all.

This road was Chidago Canyon Road. here we are going into a very narrow rock pass

These pics don't tell the tale, here we're coming into a section about 200yards long that was door to door narrow. Had anyone come from the opposite direction, someone would have had to back up.

We wound around several different roads and came out above Lake Crawely at about 6,000'

Looking out over the landscape away from Lake Crawley.