The Devil's Postpile

At the end of our stay in Yosemite we headed to Mammoth.  I’d promised myself we would go and see it “naked” after being snowbound there at Christmas.   

Mammoth Mountain had 55ft of snow this year – the most snow in all of America.  The ski slopes finally closed on 4 July.

One of the sights I wanted to see in Mammoth was the Devil’s Postpile which is one of those weird Giant’s Causeway type things – hexagonal pillars of stone created 1000’s of years ago during some major volcanic eruption.

Some enterprising 19^th century industrialist had wanted to blow the whole thing up to create a dam across a nearby river to further his mining interests, and the government of the time were quite prepared to let him – Americans are never ones to let environmental issues spoil the opportunity to make a few fast bucks.  Fortunately a plea from local conservationists directly to the then US President succeeded in preserving this geological wonder for bus loads of modern day hikers to explore.

You can’t drive to the Postpile – the powers-that-be have decreed the road too precarious so you have to take the shuttle bus.  As we drove along the shuttle driver insisted on dishing out some facts about the various hikes we could take along the route.

The hike to the Devil’s Postpile was 0.4 from the ranger station, she informed us, then it was 0.4 miles back. That’s a total of 0.8 miles round trip. You don’t say.

The hike to nearby Rainbow Falls was 1.3 miles from the trail head. Downhill.  Guess how far it was coming back? (Don’t worry if you’re struggling, this is America so you won’t have to use your initiative – the bus driver is going to tell you anyway.)  It’s 1.3 miles back – oh and it’s uphill too.  And yes, she did go on to tell us how far that was on a round trip. Feeling like a party of Elementary School Children we hopped off the bus and set off on our hike.

You don’t have to spend too long in America to realize that the majority of the population don’t like to think too much for themselves; they like rules and they like to be told what  to do.  Nothing can be left open for interpretation.  Things have to do exactly what they say on the tin and everything is very literal. I’m sure there were an awful lot of people on that bus who were very reassured to hear that if they went downhill one way it was uphill coming back.  Personally I could have worked that one out for myself but there you go. Different culture.

And talking of cultural differences, that evening we went out for a meal in a local restaurant where we were served by a very friendly waitress who had been blessed, as so many Americans are,  with a built in megaphone for a voice. The food was delicious but by the time we left we knew every combination on the menu off by heart. In addition, I’ve lived over here long enough now to know better than to dress up especially when dining out of town, but at least I can manage to put on a clean pair of jeans. The couple behind us couldn’t even be bothered to take off their coats and remove their baseball caps.

Whilst in Mammoth we took the Panoramic Gondolar to the very top of Mammoth Mountain (that’s a 15 minute ride up and believe it or not, a 15 minute ride back - downhill of course).   11,000 ft up and there was still snow on the ground but the snowborders of winter have been replaced by kids on mountain bikes, whizzing back down the dirt trails. 

We also paid a visit to the weird and wonderful Mono Lake – rivers leading into the lake were diverted to transport fresh water to the growing city of Los Angeles back in the 1940’s, causing Mono Lake to silt up, destroying the habitat of thousands of local wildlife and causing rather strange coral like calcifications to emerge out of the lake.  These "tufa's" rise up out of the water like something from a science fiction film.

Thankfully those darned conservationists have got their way again - the Los Angeles water board has now been forced by new legislation to refill the lake. Heaven forbid some of those garden sprinklers keeping the grass green in Beverly Hills might have to be switched off.