Mammoth Summer Trip 2011

2^nd Annual Mammoth Mountain Father/Daughter Trip!

Well this trip started the same way it did last year, as an attempt to get the whole family up to Mammoth. But alas, Garrison complained that he wanted to see a few friends for the ‘last time’ and Mom needed to take care of ‘work and the dog.’ Excuses excuses. Whatever, more time for me and Dad to shred on our own down the mountain!

Friday:

My dad so graciously packed up the truck while I was at work in the afternoon and after I finished up some stuff, we were off around 6pm, fingers crossed we wouldn’t hit too much traffic. We arrived in Mammoth around 12:30am and hit the sack.

Saturday:

Mountain biking all day long!

We did approximately 40 miles of riding in 4 hours. We were on the mountain for much longer, but that was the actual ride time in the saddle according to my new fancy Garmin.

The first few runs were AWESOME and I fell in love with it again. It pains me that I only mange a few days of mountain biking out of the whole year. But hopefully I’ll find more time next year now that I’m working for Felt and all the guys in the office love it. New Felt mtn bike by this time next year? I think yes.

My dad was on cloud 9. He’s in his element when he’s mountain biking on his Santa Cruz and I love riding with him because he just can’t get enough of it. By the end of the afternoon, however, we were absolutely pooped. Mountain biking is so fun that you forget how hard it is and how exhausting it can be until you’re completely spent and you find yourself shaking as your speeding through turns at the end of the day. That’s the best kid of workout.. when you don’t care how tired you are because it’s too damn fun.

Large chuck of ice that would've been in the middle of the trail

We finally decided to head back to the hotel when we were too exhausted to go on. I had made up my mind earlier to do the same run I did last year, so I got changed into running gear when we got back to the room. Dad fell asleep instantly and took a nap while I was out. I ran down Old Mammoth Road and off into this Cross Country Skiing Paved pathway that I found last year. The legs were not happy, but I was high on life. I could do runs like that every day.

After a much needed shower, we fueled up at the best restaurant in Mammoth, Base Camp Café!

It’s a Nauman family favorite. Just as satisfying as expected… especially with a couple of these.

Topped off the night with some Ben & Jerry’s at the town center place and settled in for our last night.

Sunday:

Early morning ride!

Yes, I’m crazy.. but I REALLY wanted to get a high-alt road ride in. It wasn’t even that long of a ride, but those 17 miles kicked me to the curb. My Garmin tells me it was 2,245 ft of Elevation Gain over that short distance and my highest point reached was 9,019 ft. I would consider myself to be in pretty good shape at the moment, but biking anywhere around 8,000 ft made me feel like I was an out-of-shape schmuck. Thanks, oxygen.

I had ridden up to Horseshoe Lake, then around Lake Mary, and back down to the main part of town and made a left up Minaret Road all the way to the Main Lodge. It was a 834 ft climb in 3.89 miles. I don’t know if that’s impressive or not. I only wanted to do it because I’ve been driving up that road for years and it would feel awesome to just power up it on my own. And it did.

Mountain biking again!

My dad had driven up the road in the truck when I started the climb, so I met him up there and swapped out bikes for the Trek. We only had the will power to do a few runs, but we were on the mountain for a couple hours. Both of us were pretty exhausted from the day before, and my legs were mad at me from everything else as well. I actually fell over the handlebars dropping off of one of the bridges on 7 Bridges and called it quits after that run. It was one of those slow-mo crashes you can’t do anything about but curse while it’s happening. Got a couple solid bruises to show for it.

So I went and laid in the back of the truck while my Dad went and did a downhill run down the front of the mountain. We cleaned up after that and made a pit stop at Starbucks before heading back to Orange County.

Last-minute high-altitude summer training in the books!

Hopefully I haven’t wrecked my legs too much… and I’m optimistic that 2 weeks is enough time to recover/taper for AG Nationals!

Thanks for reading.

Ta Ta For Now...

New Oakley shades, mon