Mammoth Lakes. CA

How do "they" decide where to put a bridge??? So nice after so many fords. 

Hello fellow travelers and armchair adventurists, 

       Are we tired yet ? We hikers are glad to be in the beautiful resort town of Mammoth. It's a ski town in the winter and fabulous mountain bike, climbing, fishing, swimming, camping place now which I think might be summer. We had thunder and lightning storms today. Lot's of good restaurants for people with eating disorders like us. DG is constantly explaining to wait staff why she and TC are eating so much. It is embarrassing to eat so much in public.

    We arrived yesterday and it was definitely DG's lowest day since starting the trail. She was so tired. After one two hour uphill cardio workout she had serious doubts she could finish the day. The previous day had looked like this: 1,000 ft up; 2,000ft down, 3,000 ft up, 2,000ft down. This was not the worst of it. She was beginning to reject food (i.e. gag at the thought of eating anything in her supplies). This has happened on other trips. Her body wanted fresh food. End of story. TC said it was mental thing implying that DG had control over this. DG did not agree and went on at length to explain her body and how very special it was. Whatever, the bottem line was, no food no power. She managed to eat a  couple of oat cakes with almond butter and jam. That lasted an hour. Pushing longer she finally was weak and hungry enough to eat their last dehydrated lunch: chunky chipotle chilli. It went down  and stayed. 

       DG was under the impression that everything was downhill from their lunch spot. She was maintaining and then there was another pass. She considered collapsing and never getting up again. She was angry at TC who was the map reader and all around general guide who had told her it was all downhill. At one point she yelled back at TC, "Jeezzus... could you not see this on the map? TC took her time answering. "I didn't look. I knew this was the only way out." DG said nothing else out loud. Inside her head there was plenty of dialogue. What was the point? She knew she was tired and there was no point blaming TC for this pass. She did have the thought, for the first time in 900 miles,that she hated hiking.

        Both hikers made it to Horseshoe Lake where they waited 10 minutes for a shuttle to take them into town. The shuttle driver was also a mule packer Harley Davidson rider who preferred sleeping bags to women behind his back while riding. The sleeping bag was soft and cushy like a woman but they didn't ask him to do anything and he didn't have to buy them beer. He went on about being 68 years old and the difficulty of finding a woman who didn't want to tie him down. He could do his own cooking and laundry. He wanted a woman to go dancing with him and be a companion whenever he wanted her to be. There was another hiker on the bus, Solitary Man, who had a smile on his face, chuckling at the honesty and absurdity of this overweight, toothless trolley driver. DG, always thrilled with the incredulous, egged this man on, plying him with more and more questions. She's good at egging on. They transferred buses and this time the driver was female. Apparently everyone in Mammoth has two or three jobs to survive. She was a housewife and bus driver. Her husband did nothing in the house so she really had 2 jobs. By the time DG and TC reached the Best Western their moods were lifting but not necessarily their fatigue. The front desk lady clerk had one job but her husband had three so it evened out. 

       After taking a shower and watching a white face cloth turn black they surveyed their bodies and took stock. TC had some kind of gnarly chaffing happening in her butt crack which she had been unaware of, and 2 rubbed off & bruised places over her ASIS joint. DG's body was fine but her mind was still tilted to the left. They weighed themselves and discovered they had lost 5 pounds in 7 days. Have I mentioned that after the wind episode at Walker Pass DG stopped telling the elements to bring it on. The Sierra brought it on big time and DG has shut her mouth. 

      Eating at a bar and grill place (Slocum's), was heavenly. They ate for two hours and watched one of the Stanley Cup finals games. They weren't walking. They were sitting. Everything was good.

        Next day was chore day. Washing, buying new underwear, socks, sun  glasses, boots, tenacious tape, bear proof bags. DG bought a pair of boots she could have done without because the salesman (he had two jobs) was so good. He wasn't even trying he was just authentically knowledgeable and DG is a sucker for that. Ask her to tell you her Kirby vacuum cleaner story one day. In that store (Footloose), of course they run into Andy Puhvel, the guy they had run into in Bishop, who was buying gear for his son Cashus to shred in a mountain biking comp that day. Arrangements were made for dinner at their place that night. What a good time we had. Andy and Lisa, unlike the other Mammoth residents we met barely have one job between them. They spend alot of time with each other and their two boys. They are doing it so right. They are living their lives exactly the way they want to and are happy. Their kids are special and will no doubt grow up to be exceptional people. There was a clarity and attentiveness about them. They were social and not hidden behind electronic devices. They were not twitchy and off the charts hyper. They were curious and engaged. There were kid's books everywhere. .It's inevitable with so much love and time given to these boys they will change the course of this world. Kudos to Andy and Lisa. It's not always easy to live differently than everyone else.