The ‘Other’ Season

There is usually skiing at Mammoth Mountain on the Fourth of July, and late storms occasionally push the season into August. But the best snow is history by mid-May, and by June even die-hard aficionados of “Sierra cement” forsake skis and bindings for climbing ropes, backpacks and bikes. And with such a variety of terrain within so compact an area, outdoor pluralism is the order of the day.

For adrenaline addicts, the physical chess game of rock climbing supplants high-speed runs down Climax and Hangman’s Hollow. In summer, Mammoth is the gateway to the jagged Ritter Range, and the rocky spires of the Minarets are among the most sought-after summits of North America. Unfortunately for novices, the region’s loose, shattered rock scarcely qualifies as a confidence builder; the Minarets are also among the least safe places in the Sierra to practice the sport. But an alternative is close at hand, in the form of fairy-tale crags of reassuringly solid granite--the Mammoth Crest.

My favorite climb on the crest goes up the left side of Crystal Crag, a photogenic peak that the guidebook dismisses as small. By Yosemite standards, Crystal Crag is small, a mere nubbin hundreds, not thousands, of feet high. Ropes are unnecessary on several routes, and the Class IV and V climbing is stimulating, not gymnastically challenging. But what Crystal Crag lacks in technical difficulty it makes up for in splendid isolation, and to stand on its summit is to feel the world at one’s feet as surely as from El Capitan. The view stretches 50 miles in every direction, and below, a strand of lakes shimmers like quicksilver pearls. The human-power price of admission is a 15-minute bike ride from Mammoth proper, followed by a two- to three-hour scramble to the top.

Which leaves an entire long summer’s afternoon for meeting the mountains at yet another level--aboard a mountain bike. Such machines are to Mammoth what gondolas are to Venice. They’re more than just the most amusing way to get around. On many of the area’s half-melted-out, off-road-vehicle-only trails, they’re the only way to get anywhere. The Mammoth Lake Sierra is honeycombed with obscure tracks leading to abandoned homesteads, derelict mines and idyllic, secluded hot springs. The best thing about these places is that most of them aren’t on any map. The best way to find them is on one of the new, fat-tired flyers with gears that make molehills out of mountains. The machines do not belong on wilderness trails, but most of the Mammoth area is outside wilderness boundaries. The terrain is there for the taking, and riding high can be its own reward. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings,” John Muir wrote . “Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. . . . Cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”