What better way to celebrate Luke's birthday then doing all of his favorite things in one of his favorite places; Mammoth Mountain California. We couldn't resist heading up there to enjoy not only some fly fishing and exploring but as well as some spring snowboarding! Let me put this in perspective for you. Two years ago we celebrated his birthday in Mammoth and instead of boarding we were able to fish and mountain bike. That is how much snow Mammoth has right now! And boy we are not complaining. We headed up super early in the morning to get a full day in up there. We weren't totally sure what the plan was but we packed everything we needed to do whatever we wanted. By the time we got up there we figured a nice, chill morning was in order. We grabbed some coffee and tea from our favorite coffee shop Black Velvet then headed up to Twin Lakes to see if the lakes were still frozen. Just a few weeks before this we were up in Mammoth with some friends on a snowboarding trip and the lakes were still mostly frozen! But this time they had all thawed out but there was still tons of snow surrounding the lakes and the Lake Mary Road was still closed. The waterfall into the top lake was flowing! We had never seen it like that. The snowmelt this year is definitely going to cause some issues.
After the lakes we headed over the Owens River to do some fly fishing. We had met a nice group of people up at Twin Lakes who told us about the fishing they had done at the Owens River and warned us about all the mosquitos. Of course we took their warning and went straight to the store to grab some bug spray. A lot of good it did us though.... Luke was practically eaten alive! Other then the mosquitos, it was gorgeous hanging out by the river, looking out at the snow capped Sierras, Luke casting in the distance, our pup Maxx swimming to cool off, and of course having a nice cold beer. It was perfect! After we gave up due to the insane amount of Mosquitos, we headed over to Mammoth Brewery for some beers and grub. I am obsessed with the Mammoth Eatery's Damn Good Burger! I won't lie, I ate there twice on this trip ;) It was the best way to end the day.
Luke's official birthday was the next day. I woke up super early and decorated the entire hotel room with balloons and party decorations. He was definitely surprised when he woke up. The weather wasn't the best that day (well, for some people. We LOVE gloomy weather). Apparently it was going to rain on the mountain so boarding was a no go and fishing wasn't going to happen. So instead we decided to walk up the bike path to Twin Lakes with Maxx. No one was out there and part of the trail still had a ton of snow on it. But it was fun scrambling over it. After our walk up we headed out to The Stove to get a BIG breakfast in (seriously, this place is amazing!). Then we headed to June Lake. We wanted to check out the water falls and see how the lake was looking but to also hit up June Lake Brewery. We have been wanting to try this brewery forever and they are dog friendly which made it easy with Maxx. The beer was surprisingly good! And everyone there were all very nice. They even had a food truck outside. But the main attraction for June was the rivers! When I say rivers, I actually mean the normally tiny creeks that were flooding with too much water. We just couldn't believe it! We drove the June Lake Loop, scoped out a few fishing spots we wanted to hit the next day then headed back to Mammoth. The next day we woke up to blue bird skies! We grabbed our snowboard gear and headed out. We were pleasantly surprised that the snow was as good as it was. It felt as if we were snowboarding in January! We got tons of runs in since there was practically no one on the mountain. It was as if we had it all to ourselves. Unfortunately the snow gets super slushy pretty quick, so we called it quits around 10am and headed back to June Lake to do some fishing. Luke had heard of two possible good fishing spots that we would have to drive up a dirt road for either one. But we didn't know which was better and it was kind of a last minute decision to go so we just picked one at random. Parker Lake Trail was gorgeous! But its about a 4mile round trip hike and we didn't know that until after we did it. So we hiked it with one bottle of water, no snacks, and in our converse/vans. Still super fun and the lake was gorgeous! We talked to a few people on the trail that said there are fish there but catching them is difficult. Apparently we chose the wrong lake. The other lake was a stocked lake and the fishing is always good. But we didn't care. Just being out there at a beautiful lake was perfect. It was a great way to end our little getaway :)
To see more from this trip check out our video below. Don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to see more videos! Thanx guys!