Daily ramblings and interesting things I find.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Mammoth / Yosemite Trip 2008

This was my first two-week vacation ever, and it turned out to be the best vacation ever. The only downside was the heat in Yosemite, otherwise we had a great time and will probably do something similar next year. Here's how it went...

Day 1 - Traveled from Home to Mammoth, CA - Set up campsite, hung out with family.

Day 2 - Mammoth - Full day of downhill mountain biking at Mammoth Mountain ski resort. Had a blast on my new DH bike. Swam with the kids at the condo pool.

Day 3 - Mammoth - Kayaked Twin Lakes, turned out to be too windy.

Day 4 - Mammoth - Kayaked Twin Lakes again. It was perfect today! Paddled out to the waterfalls.

Day 5 - Mammoth - Another full day of DH riding at Mammoth Mountain. Rode some closed trails that were supposed to open this weekend. Annual fish fry at night.

Day 6 - Mammoth - Kayak'd Twin Lakes with Mitchell's family... too windy.

Day 7 - Mammoth to Lee Vining (Mono Lake) - Hung out at campsite, played games with the kids.

Day 8 - Lee Vining - Found out that Mono Lake was too salty and full of flies, so we visited the Bodie ghost town and drove to June Lake to kayak.

Day 9 - Lee Vining to Yosemite - Drove the Tioga Pass, while stopping at Tenaya Lake to kayak, and many other places to appreciate the scenery. It was about 110 degrees at our campsite in Midpines, so we swam at the pool and decided for the rest of the week to only be there at night when it was cool.

Day 10 - Yosemite - Found Briceburg point, a very cool spot on the Merced River with an 8-foot and 14-foot bolder jump. You have to drive over a suspension bridge to get there, which was pretty sketchy in my truck. Jumping off the rocks with Ryann was a blast.

Day 11 - Yosemite - Drove into the valley, walked up to the bottom of Bridelvail and Lower Yosemite Falls (climbed the rocks with Ryann and Ethan). Checked out some camp sites for next year and swam in the Merced River at a local spot.

Day 12 - Yosemite - Today we did the parental thing and dragged the kids along to the typical tourist hot spots, including Tuolumne Grove (with the giant Sequoia trees) and Glacier Point.

Day 13 - Yosemite - Spent the day at Briceburg again and had an absolute blast! Ethan jumped off the 8-foot rock twice. We also saw two snakes and a duck running on top of the water very quickly up stream.

Day 14 - Yosemite to Home - Drove home, up and down many steep hills, later to find out that my lovely wife didn't properly flush the toilet before we dumped, so we lugged about 100 pounds of our sewage back home with us. Fun stuff.