Today we spent the day exploring the "lakes" of Mammoth Lakes. We drove around exploring and oohing and aahing at the scenery, then picked a random spot to park and take a hike. We had a map of the town with various trails marked on it and figured "this one looks good'!
However, I totally pictured us being the objects of a search and rescue mission as we were the total city-fied folks that had absolutely nothing on the list of things posted on the big sign at the trail head. Things like a compass, a topographical map, rain clothing and shelter for the typical afternoon summer storm, mirror, first aid kit. We had a backpack with some peanut butter sandwiches (bear bait); RJ and Kevins limited boy scout knowledge; and the fact that I knew not to touch the nettles or the bushes with leaves in clumps of three. Well, I also knew what way was north.
Passing folks along the trail reminded me that we were in Sierra Club country and we looked every bit of the tourists we were. Hopefully they would be nice and help us when that flash flood from the summer monsoon came and washed us away.
The trail we chose went to two different lakes. (I had no idea the length or the topography involved, cause all we had was the free map they handed out to greenhorns like us.) This first lake was just up a little rise, and was just beautiful. OK, that wasn't so hard.
The boys immediately went around looking for rocks to skip on the water. When they couldn't find any more smooth ones, they resorted to just chucking any old rocks they could find in the water. I had to explain to them that the folks fishing nearby probably didn't like them scaring away the fish with all those rocks. We had to leave before they sent a lynch mob out after us.
We kept on going, hiking up this pretty steep section of trail. We passed some cabins with no visible roads to get to them, and crossed a couple of streams heading into the lake below.
We stopped every so often (like every shady spot) so we all could suck some wind, I mean catch our breath, and then noticed we had yet another steep section ahead of us. Oh yeah, not all of us had hiking boots, some of us only had tennis shoes on. That was OK going up the trail, but made for some slips coming back down.
We finally reached the second lake where no one was fishing and the boys could skip rocks to their hearts content. We polished off the sandwiches with not one bear joining us. Got back to the car a couple hours later where I noticed another sign that said the second lake was a whopping 1/2 mile away. I guess that was a pretty good beginner's hike cause we had fun and everyone slept like a rock that night.
Later that evening we went into town for dinner, and they were holding the first of the town's events for the Fourth. There was a dunk tank, some booths sponsored by various local groups, and some fire trucks. Matt competed in this obstacle course against a girl who whooped him. "It wasn't fair..." he said, "she cheated."
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