June 4th 2016: Mammoth Lakes – Drive to Yosemite Valley
After finishing our hike in Zion we hitch to Las Vegas (2 awesome ladies take us all the way, straight to the rental car center at the airport), pick up a tiny rental car and drive towards the Sierra.
We organize our food before we head over to the forest service visitor center in Mammoth, where we meet Jaxx who has bearcans for us. Awesome! Thanks so much Jaxx, you frikkin rock!!!
It’s a long but beautiful drive down into the Valley. So much more snow than last year. On the way we see a bear mom with her cub. Sweeet! When we are in the valley things get crazy cause it’s saturday and its FULL of tourists. Thank god we get a backcountry permit from a tired but friendly ranger (The ranger next to him is testing two JMTers to the bone). Seems like he knows that we practice LNT and have spend many many nights in the backcountry. Anyway, we park our car and take the shuttle to the backpackers camp. Definitely a wrong decision on a saturday, the shuttle is over over full, we’re like sardines squeezed in and it takes the bus ages to get to the stables.
But ya we get there finally, promise to never take the shuttle again on the weekends, and pitch our tent on the spot where I’ve been pitching my tent since I first came here. While we sit and have lunch a BOBCAT just strolls by. What? Yeah!!! So so gorgeous!!!
Bobcat. We got some awesome video footage from this beauty.
