Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Mammoth Mountain, California

August 12 - 13, 2004

A few weeks ago I saw some ride photos from Mammoth Mountain posted on mtbr.com and they seemed to contradict my perceptions of the place. I had always assumed it was just for down hilling but the photos showed some nice cross country (XC) stuff. After a few inquiries and checking the Mammoth Mountain Bike Park website, it became apparent that there is plenty of XC. So Tim (UncleMTB) and I signed up for a two day deal which included a room and unlimited lift pass for a very reasonable price. Since it was a two day minimum deal I decided to break my "one ride per week" rule, depending on how the first day affected my knees.

Tim arrived at my house Wednesday morning, we packed up my truck and headed out. Unfortunately, he came in the front door and we packed up and went out the garage. When we returned on Friday evening I was shocked to see that I left the front door open the whole time! I had always felt I lived in a safe neighborhood and after a quick check of the house and its contents, I was relieved to see that I was right. Nothing was missing and no animals or homeless people were living in it. The trip down was quite uneventful and after checking in we stuffed our bikes and equipment into a very small room. Neither of us slept either night. At first we thought it might be the altitude, warm temperatures, or just the excitement. But we both feel it was the pillows. We'll bring our own next time.

I'm very afraid of heights and Tim occasionally gets vertigo so we were both quite anxious when we saw the gondolas, which took you up to over 11,000 ft. The first ride up was a bit scary for both of us. Between the midpoint, where some people get off, and the top, the gondola crosses a seemingly bottomless canyon until it reaches the top. Both of us had a difficult time with that. The temperature at the top was nearly perfect and after taking in the amazing views of mountain peaks in the distance and miles of singletrack winding down the mountain, we began descending the Off the Top trail. We had been warned there was a lot of deep volcanic pumice so we were a bit cautious. However, it soon became apparent that the pumice was quite light and you could easily float through most of it. It does not compare to anything we have encountered on the Tahoe Rim Trail or Cannell Plunge.

After Off the Top we continued on down Beach Cruiser back to the lodge. Off the Top was pretty cool and quite fast but we both preferred the forests and winding singletrack of Beach Cruiser. After a bit of a rest and food we took the gondola back up and repeated the previous ride. However, since we were now familiar with it we really let go, hitting nearly 23 mph. I don't know that I've ever used my big ring on singletrack before, but I found myself using it, the highest gear, and occasionally pedaling standing! There were at least a dozen switchbacks on Off the Top and on the second run I made all of them! So I had to put a foot out sometimes but if I don't have to stop then I'm happy. After the second run we had lunch while watching massive thunderclouds move in. So we definitely weren't going back up in that gondola. Jon, a bike mechanic, gave us a good XC route down into town: Downtown, Paper Route, and Big Ring. These were fantastic, narrow and twisty, slightly downhill XC singletrack though forests and several types of terrain. Once we got to town we took the bike shuttle back to the lodge. On the way up the skies opened up, it poured and become quite a bit cooler, so we were glad we stayed off the peak.

After several ice packs and another sleepless night the knees felt up to more riding, so we wanted to do more XC. We took the gondola back to the top and headed down Off the Top again. This time, however, we took Gravy Train across the side of the mountain to Brake Through. We had a much healthier respect for the pumice on Gravy Train because the trail was sometimes quite narrow with big cliff side drop-offs. After Brake Through we took Paper Route over to the Twin Lakes viewpoint and then headed down to town via Juniper. These were all great classic XC, narrow twisty rolling singletrack through forests, with occasional breaks into open rocky areas. On the way into town we flew down the pavement reaching 37 mph, I believe, and then we took the bike shuttle back to the lodge. 

With the exception of trying to go as fast as we could for the videos, all the trails were actually fairly easy. There were absolutely no technical parts and the few roots and drop-offs were all under two feet. However, we were really surprised at how much of an aerobic workout going downhill as fast as you can gives you. We had a blast and we'll certainly to do it again. We had contemplated doing a "one diamond" downhill trail but we were afraid we might get in over our heads, be hit from behind, or have to do some downhill walking, which really hurts my knees. I suspect we could do some of the easier downhill stuff based on the ratings of the trails we did. 

Since we did nearly every non-advanced trail at least once, and some two or  three times, two days was about perfect for this place. If I had better knees we could have easily finished all the other trails the afternoon of the second day. All the trails are well marked, the route map is excellent, and there is a well stocked bike shop with mechanics on duty. We both considered this one of our best mountain biking experiences ever and we'll definitely make it an annual rite!

After dealing with the ridiculously high food prices and narrow selection in the resort just once we began going into town, only a few miles away, to eat breakfast and dinner. Angel's Restaurant was the best place for dinner and the Good Life Cafe was the best for breakfast. 

Click on an image to enlarge it

The Mammoth	Last minute spoke adjustment	Jon knows best routes	Waiting for 2nd gondola	Carriage of death?
Scariest part of trip	Best part of trip	UncleMTB 11,053 ft.	Me	UncleMTB
UncleMTB	Where is sign pointing?	Bike shuttle	Moving fast	Nice view
Resort below	Storms brewing	Checking the map	Me	Yosemite on way home

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