Skiing, Anyone?

Rest day yesterday in Bishop.  Nice........  Didn't accomplish very much.  Went to see another chiropractor, visited the local scrumptious bakery for lunch, looked in a few outdoor stores, and then back to the hotel for R&R, out for dinner (ate way too much!), and an early evening - oh the exciting life of old-lady bike tourers!

Tonight we're at Mammoth Lakes - home to California's largest ski area.  We're at an elevation of 7,880 feet, so a tad cooler than what we've experienced over the past few days.  Variety is the spice of life...............  That's one of the things I really enjoy about these long tours - every day the scenery changes as do the challenges.

It was a really beautiful ride today.  We stayed on secondary roads for all but about the last 10 miles.  I knew we had a big climbing day ahead (about 5000 feet) and I knew we would have winds out of the north, so I savoured the first 19 miles of relatively flat terrain and the time that we were out of the winds.
 

The photo below is from N Round Valley Road - still on the flats.  Off to our right we could see US395 climbing its way up to Sherwin Hill Summit.  Yikes!

It still took us a while to get to the start of the climb du jour.

We climbed up Lower Rock Creek Road and took lots of scenic breaks on the way up.  About a 10 mile climb with a few brief downhills along the way.

The first part of the climb was wide open with sweeping views back down towards Bishop.  After a brief downhill the second part of the climb was in a bit of a canyon.  Such a nice change - narrow, along a babbling brook, lots of vegetation - aspen and huge pines of some type.  Not enough room to get a good perspective for a photo, so no pics from in the canyon.

Most of us stopped for lunch at the top of the climbs, at Tom's Place.  It was a bit cool up there so a nice bowl of soup sure tasted good.  Twenty miles left to go after lunch, so back at it.  Crowley Lake soon came into view.

Saw this interesting sign as we were getting close to Mammoth.  If it wasn't a 2 mile ride UP I might have been tempted to go exploring.  Just looked on-line and it is a beautiful lake.  It was named after an incident in 1871 where a group of convicts escaped from prison in Carson City.  The law found them near the head of what is now Convict Creek.

And on towards the end..............

Apparently the ski resort is still open for business on a very limited basis - for another week.  The hotel we're in is a classic ski hotel but definitely in shoulder season mode.  Shrimp curry and home-made spring rolls for dinner - yum!

Stats of the day:
77 km / 47 miles from Bishop CA to Mammoth Lakes CA
5080 feet up
1394 feet down
Weather:  we started at about 15C this morning with some clouds & some sun.  It did get up into the low 20s at times but since today was a net uphill day it cooled off again by the time we reached "home".  Strong headwinds at times, but they came and went as we were on some pretty twisty roads that constantly changed direction.  Very comfortable temps for climbing.