Fun Begins at 9,000 ft

Family reunions are often Dickensian, as in “The best of times, the worst of times.” The meeting place this time around definitely implied the former situation as we would be spending time in one of our own childhood haunts: Mammoth Lake, California.

Besides packing the necessary items like beer from Portland, also in the car were road bikes, AT skis, downhill skis, and hiking gear. With a large residual snowpack from a winter boasting 170% of normal snowfall, the skis turned out to be a good idea.

From our cabin at Lake Mary I could put Black Diamond skins on the AT skis and go straight up a hill, with only a bit of zig-zag to keep the skins pine needle free. One day was spent riding the lifts…actually more like half a day since the afternoon snow turned to something resembling oatmeal with maple syrup. This was my first time on some new boards on which I had installed Fritschi Tecton 12 bindings, and they did indeed live up to the performance promise of a touring binding that had elasticity and retention to bomb down steep groomers. Ripping turns in late June sun, not bad!

The best outdoor opportunity was the hiking. After all, that was why Mom and Dad dragged us up year after year since my brother and I were toddlers. Back then we would often have trails to ourselves, but with the population density of California today I didn’t have those expectations--which made getting out for hikes a more than pleasant surprise since we did indeed have the backcountry to ourselves. With the residual snowpack, the hiking trails were partially to fully obscured. My wife and I were prepared with proper gear to take advantage of this situation with proper shoes, hiking poles, and most of all map and compass and the experience to use them.

I long ago restricted my use of heavy duty hiking boots in favor of trail running shoes for hiking, but being on hard and slippery snow made me wonder if I had made the right choice using La Sportiva Akyra mountain running shoes. Turned out I didn’t need to worry, the grippy rubber and the stepped heel on the Akyra provided amazing traction even going down steep snowbanks. Any exposed rock slabs were no problem, after all these are La Sportiva’s!

With so much off-trail navigating, trekking poles came in handy for crossing the many snow melt streams, steep descents on snow or rock, and just helping me keep up a fast rhythm. As a Nordic ski racer decades ago I was using poles for hiking and backpacking as they also provided a ski training effect, but modern hiking poles are a big improvement. I was using Black Diamond Trail Ergo Trekking poles, but my petite wife found her hands stayed more comfortable using the Leki Cresssida, which has a smaller grip.

We did many days of wandering about the high country by the Mammoth Crest without having to share it with anyone else, and every evening come back to family and great food. And on the last day we were able to find the tree that Mom and Dad carved their names into when they first met, and we could barely make out mine and my three brothers’ names that had been added. We brought up memories of hiking this area as a family, spread our folk’s ashes around the family tree, and then went back to the cabins for the last of the beer from Portland.