#redsmeadow

Reds Meadow road opens today and shuttles start tomorrow. Who is hiking to Rainbow Falls this weekend!? In other breaking news...I’d much rather be staring at this then a computer screen at work today. 😑Where would you rather be? ••• Rainbow Falls, Mammoth Lakes, Ca #mammothmountain #mamothlakes #rainbowfalls #redsmeadow #easterncalifornia (at Rainbow Falls (California))

Pacific Crest Trail Day 45: There are a few ways into Mammoth Lakes from the PCT - Mammoth Pass, Red’s Meadow, Devils Postpile, or Agnew Meadows. The last three options typically offer a bus up to Mammoth, but this bus won’t start running (this year) for another two days which means that I will either have to walk the road or get a hitch (which will only be possible with a Red’s Meadow employee because the road is closed for the next two days as well). I consider hiking 2.5 mi / 4 km over Mammoth Pass, but this will require a 1 mi / 1.6 km road walk on the other side and will then mean that I have to come back in to the PCT this same way (I would rather do more miles now to help out Future Mac). . I end up hiking to Red’s Meadow and have a rather frustrating morning filled with icy downhills and a freezing lake crossing. It’s not that the trail this morning was more difficult than the trail south of here, but rather that my expectation for the 19.73 mi / 31.75 km to Red’s Meadow was that it would be an easy and snow-free hike (where I got this idea, I have no idea). When expectations don’t match reality is when things get frustrating for me (best to just not have expectations of what’s to come). . From Red’s I begin the long hike up the road (there’s a trail option too but there’s a chance of a ride if I walk the road) out to Mammoth. After half an hour of walking, I catch a ride from a Red’s employee heading home for the day. We are stopped halfway up the road by forest service crews who are cutting down trees in preparation for the road’s opening to the public in two days. Stopped in the middle of the road, we watch as the crew fells a huge tree right in front of us. We spend the next forty minutes watching them chainsaw it in half and push it off the road (and down a large hill) with a bulldozer. . Once I make it to Mammoth I check into a hotel where I get myself two nights - tomorrow is going to be a zero day (my justification is that the last section was hugely challenging and that if I zero tomorrow, the bus will be running the next day to take me back). . Day: PCT 887.5 to Mammoth Lakes via Red’s Meadow Day's distance: 19.73 mi / 31.75 km #Sierra #PCT

Waterfall near Sotcher Lake, Red's Meadow/Devils Postpile. @nationalparkservice @reds_meadow_resort #waterfall #outdoors #landscape #nature #water #sierra #california #green #mammothlakes #redsmeadow (at Sotcher Lake, Mammoth)

The elevation profile of the JMT. Lots of up and down! Courtesy of Reds Meadow Resort: http://www.redsmeadow.com/ (where we’ll be stopping for SEVERAL cold beers on Day 6).