Bicycling at Mammoth Lakes, California

Mammoth Lakes area has a beautiful bike trail that threads through the pine forests, beside lakes, along a waterfall, and next to scenic lookouts.  With friends, Craig and Linda, we rented bikes in town, for $20 each, put them in back of the truck...then drove them to the shuttle stop.

We could of rented bikes directly at the shuttle stop, but it was a little more expensive. The shuttle is free. Our bikes are in a trailer hitched to the back of the bus.

The bus drove along the edge of a scenic pass. We could see the town of Mammoth in the low lands and several mountain ranges in the distance. Then we began approaching the lakes. There are 5 or 6 and about one mile apart.

The bus dropped us off at the top of the trail which is Horse Shoe Lake. It's beautiful but its shrinking slowly due to a fissure in the lake floor. We are in earthquake and volcano country. The ground is covered in tiny pumice stones.

Mozart, who is an off-road enthusiast, talked us into riding around the lake on a dirt trail. It was  great. I told Mozart we should sell our motorcycles and get into mountain biking. This didn't go over well.

After a loop around the lake (and I will mention we are at 8955 ft.) We head down the paved trail beginning our 8 mile decent. We take a detour over to a foot bridge for a picture. 

The bike trail goes right along the top of this waterfall. The water flows into the lake below.

 We stopped to visit the horses at the horse back riding post.

The bike tunnels were awesome.

Another bridge.

We had a great time!

Ninety-five percent of the ride was downhill. So the altitude is not a big problem.

This is a great ride for the whole family. We noticed a couple of 12 year old boys taking the shuttle up with their skateboards. The driver told me they had been going up and down all day.  Well that's better than video games!

 Mammoth is a mountain biking mecca. I've only barely touched what is available. The emphasis is on off-road. There are miles and miles of trails. You can even ride the gondola to the top and kamikaze down your favorite ski trail.  I'm not quite ready for that yet!

But you don't have to be a biker to enjoy a scenic gondola ride to the top.

That's it, for this post... I must go and make some mashed potatoes. My oldest son had his wisdom teeth out today. His new puppy is a great helper.