Day #30 Mammoth Lakes & Lake George

Jenny offered me a ride to Mammoth Lakes in the morning – cool! On the way we passed beautiful lakes and hills and lots of yellow „bear xing“ signs.

Mammoth Lakes has a free shuttle transit system which is great but of course I missed my bus about a minute and hiked into town instead.

Mammoth reminded me very much of an Austrian ski resort, shops, ski rental shop, restaurants, hotels and lodges along a main street. The income source and attraction, the mountains, are visible from every point. People come to here to camp, hike, fish and ride their bikes (I also saw some downhill bikers waiting for a bike shuttle, for which I have the same sympathy as for „cool“ snowboarders, but whatever…). In winter, the bike trails are transformed into ski slopes.

A shuttle with a very aggressive driver took me upwards to „Lakes Basin“ – I picked my campground spontaneously and it was a good choice. Lake George is right next to the site and the hosts are nice. It‘s a good place to acclimate and prepare for my second big trail – a section of John Muir Trail, northbound. I‘ll start in two days.

After setting up camp, I hiked around the lake, admiring the granite formations and the crystal clear water. I swam a full round and dried in the sun. While studying the clouds and sky, I noticed that all of a sudden, everything had become quite dark and the clouds rumbled – but no raindrops fell down yet. The winds picked up during the night, all the bees and bugs flew lower than usual and I knew for certain that it was going to rain soon!