Today, for something new and different, Jen and I took the lifts up to the top of Mammoth Mountain and then dropped down off the backside into the San Joaquin drainage towards the Red's Meadow hot spring. During the summer this spring is gated closed (it used to feed a shower house but the state has shut it down), but in the winter they open it up for snowmobilers and skiers to soak.
The ski down was...interesting. Jen got a good taste of survival skiing in crusty sun affected snow, but it was the end, not the means which motivated us down there!
After soaking for close to an hour and a half, we finally got our lazy bones out of the tub for the long skin back out through the Rainbow Fire deadfall, battling..gasp...sunshine and gloppy snow sticking to the skins before getting back to the ski lifts at 3:58pm (they close the lifts at 4:00).
Happy hour at Slocum's got us back to normal, and now the next tour gets planned!
ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment