Mammoth Lakes, California
I'm coming down to the last few months of grad school here in Reno and I had to take advantage of living close to Mammoth Lakes, CA (3 hour drive vs. 6 hours from my hometown). Planned a climbing road trip around Mammoth Lakes, Crystal Lake, and eventually Owens River Gorge. Had an extra day before all the climbing so I decided to do a quick and short solo hike. I've previously read about Rainbow Falls and Mammoth's shuttle service that brings you straight to the trailhead. Unfortunately I arrived on the one day they decided to do some brush clearing so the entire road and shuttle service leading to the trailhead was closed. I drove up Minaret Rd. as far as I could from Mammoth's Main Lodge and was lead to a small parking lot and cool outlook, Minaret Vista. The outlook had plenty of parking and a restroom. There was a lot of signs and informative posts explaining the formation of a series of jagged peaks called Minarets. Not knowing where I was going, I decided to wander off a dirt trail to see where it would lead. Little did I know, I would meet up with the trailhead of Deadman Pass which is opened to 4x4's, bikes, and hikers. I updated my contacts on my new trail and where the trailhead was located and headed off into one of my favorite solo hikes to this day. Really chill hike that puts you just over 10,000 ft.. The views were fantastic as you can turn around anytime to see Mammoth Mountain in its full glory. There was little to no trees towards the last half of the hike so it got pretty windy. What a great day.
Distance: 5.2 miles (Out-and-Back)
Elevation Gain: 1,374 ft.
Final Elevation: 10,234 ft. (Highest point of the trail)
Directions to the Parking Lot: From Mammoth's Main Lodge, drive west along Minaret Rd. until you reach a manned pay booth that intersects Lookout Point Rd. and Postpile Rd. The parking lot is on your right. Or you can use the following coordinates in Google Maps to route your directions to the parking lot.
37.654005, -119.057811
To get to the trailhead, follow a very obvious dirt road located north of the parking lot near a trail map and keep left along all the forks. The trailhead is marked with a sign.
Mammoth Mountain Main Lodge
Parking lot.
Dirt road north of the parking lot that will lead you to the trailhead.
Trailhead.
Beautiful day!
Minarets (to the right) as mentioned above.
Small patch of snow to climb over.
Continuing on...
#21! Thanks to the kind couple that took this picture for me.
My favorite picture of the day!
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