Hello, Lovine.com | Photo | 2014 | 0613 Mammoth Hot Springs
A short (but very eventful) weekend trip up along the Eastern Sierras to escape from the grind of the cities, San Francisco and LA reprezented! Lots of text, but I'm using this as a sort of memory vault, Dear Diary of sorts.
Friday
On Friday night, it was the last full moon on a Friday the 13th, until the year 2049, so Kat and I freaked out and howled like wolves as the moon came out at Olancha while we were gassing up. We met up the rest of the crew at Bridgeport, and set up very late at Buckeye Campground. We did a quick swing through where the Buckeye Hot Springs were, and found at least 4-5 cars parked at 1AM along the bluff with several motionless bodies lying on the ground. It wasn't a very good sign, and we were expecting it to be substantially crowded with the weekend YOLO-ers when we planned to hit it up the next day.
Saturday
Lo and behold on Saturday morning, we were suprised to find the Buckeye springs totally empty, except for the 4 of us who quickly clambered onto the warm pools right beside a stream, watching as the hot water cascaded down a rock face behind us... Soak, soak, soak. "Are those crystals?" I believe it!
In the afternoon we made our way out to Mono Lake, and basically offroaded all the way around it. The road was very soft like a baby's bottom covered in 30 feet of baby powder. There were sand dunes a-ways in, and we spent some time honing our levitating skillz and filling all our pockets with sand. I also tried to get footage with the homebrew GoPro 360* swivel mount, but failed miserably after we just got continuously dumped on by sand and the ghetto mounting gave up the ghost. Save it for next trip. Again.
Ended up by the south tufas of Mono Lake and took a breather and some pictures. I would like to feel what it feels like to swim in water that is 2.5x salinity and 10000000 times alkaline.. Maybe I'd actually not drown.
We swung by Hot Creek on the way out, intending to find a spot to camp.. but all the spots were already naked and taken. Plan B was Shepherd Hot Springs.. and it was empty! Woot! Jumped in, and watched the moonrise from behind the mountains and filled the entire valley into a blue glow. Amaze everyones balls.
Sunday
The morning after, we met Dan who had a little conondrum. His car keys decided to hide under a package of strawberries on the passenger seat, with the driver door locked... but still slightly ajar. We gave him all kinds of stuff, and long story short, McGuyver-ed the keys to freedom!! Definitely a welcome relief, as we celebrated with fish tacos con all sorts of awesome like grilled nopales y unicorn meat.
We continued the adventure out the road to Laurel Lakes, where Monina took the wheel of Basso's Monstero and masterfully guided it across that nasty alpine road that went up the mini Swiss Alps like no other. Very impressive for a first timer!! We were rewarded by incredible views of sub alpine terrain that held a blue lake surrounded by mountain tops... Basso had an inflatable raft and we all spent quality time with him drifting aimlessly in the middle of the lake holding hands and drinking beer.
Right before we left, I decided to air up my tires right before we got on the 365... I left our sleeping bags on the roof rack cos I didn't want them "to get dirty".. thinking to myself that I might forget that they were up there. And of course, I did. Someone yelled at us on the freeway immediately after it fell out of our roof rack, but as soon as we turned around to get them, they were gone like the dinosaurs. I felt real bad about it, but I guess it's also important not to dwell on your physical possessions... because the awesome that happened in between the 8 years that we've slept through those sacks? Priceless.
