Mammoth Mountain and Rock Creek 8-8

Aren't vacations suposed to be relaxing?

Well, I just got back from Mammoth and I'm beat. A brief description of what the trip consisted of.

Got there thursday and just realaxed with friday dedicated to spending time with the famility so riding didn't begin until saturday.

Saturday
I was riding by myself so I didn't know how it was going to go. The last time I was here I was so out of shape I only got a few runs in, and since I just followed roger and the crew I didn't really have a good idea of which trails were which. I got my copy of the map, bought my all day lift ticket ($30), threw on my armor and planned my day. I decided to try to ride ALL the trails. I got close.

Here's the map for reference.
http://summer.mammothmountain.com/bike_park/trail_map/large_map.cfm
First Run
Off the top to Beach Cruiser.....
First run of the day just to loosen up.
Second Run
Off the top to Beach Cruiser (again)
I had planned on turning on Gravy Train but I missed the turn and didn't realize it until I was at the top of Beach Cruiser where I stopped to use the bathroom. Top to bottom with bathroom break only too 45 min.
Third Run
Middle lift, Break Trough to Downtown then back to the condo
Lunch
Fourth Run
Skid Marks to Paper Route to Big Ring
Now skidmarks was pretty loose but not as rocky as I remembered it 2 years ago. Somewhere going down there was a signed downhill trail that I can't find on the map. It recommended full face helmets and full downhill bikes. It recommended that Pro's only go down. I didn't go down.
Fifth Run
Off the top to Gravy Train to Bearing Straights to Kamikaze
Gravy Train is just a cross mountain trail but Bearing straights was really interesting due to the different rock types. I wanted to convert from Bearing straits over to mountain view but missed the turn and ended up on Kamikaze
Sixth Run
Off the top, Gravy Train to Break through to Seven Bridges to Downtown to Paper Route to Downtown to Shotgun
I figured this was the last run since to hit the trails I hadden't been on I'd have to go all the way down to town and by the time the bus took me back up the lifts would be closed. So I tried to link up as many trails that I hadden't ridden and make it as long as possible. Seven Bridges was where Kevin had broke his rib so I had some mixed karma feelings. I had made fun of Kevin so that was bad karma, but I did ride for help sot hat was good karma, but was it more good karma or bad karma???? Well I rode it anyway because I wanted to see if the hole he hit was still there.... it is. Seven bridges is a fun trail and there is one good size drop after the last bridge you might want to watch for. Shotgun is really fun with all it's drops at the end but the little climb at the beginning started to finally wear on me.

Anyway, by the time I got to the bottom of shotgun it was 5pm and the lifts were closed. I didn't get a chance to ride chain smoke and I skipped all the downhill runs because I was riding by myself so if I went down I wouldn't have anyone to go for help like Kevin did.

Along with those trails I hit the x-zones here and there. I have no idea how many miles that was since I don't have a computer on the bike, any guesses?

I could have gotten another run but I probably killed an hour waiting for the bus at the bottom after lunch and after the 4th run. The first bus leaves the bottom at 9:30 in the morning but the first lift is running at 9am so if you want to get the most runs in start at the lodge instead of waiting for the first bus in town.

Sunday I spent mostly with the wife and kids but then in the afternoon I rode a a loop called Shady something that started across from mcdonnalds. There was a geocache up there somewhere so it was just a casual fireroad loop exploring different roads. I exited the loop and cut over to the bottom of downtown to get a little bit of singletrack in that day. Maybe 12 miles with easy climbs.

Sunday night Augie and Roger showed up.

Monday Augie, Roger, Michael and I went to Rock Creek. It's a shuttle run and we had time to do it twice Monday morning. Lot's of fun, mostly easy fast singletrack that flows really nicely with a technical section on the bottom section that worked me pretty good since I was pretty beat from the previous days ridings. 14 miles

We drove back to the condos, eat lunch relaxed and decided to hit the mountain again.
Augie, Michael and I got dropped of at the lodge. I pretty much told them that I couldn't do much climbing that day so was just rode Downtown to Paper route back to Downtown, cut over to uptown and climbed a little bit so we could hit the x-zone we missed. Hit the X-zone to downtown again, decided not to hit shotgun and rode downtown all the way to the bottom then climbed back to the condos. That was it. I slowly.... slowly climbed back up to my condo witch was really close to where the expo used to be.

That night we all had dinner at Augie's condo.

george