I was really impressed with the "Oh Ridge!" campground. We were a little spoiled by having one of the better campsites (read: lake view and shade!), but the entire campground was clean and REALLY quiet. I wouldn't hesitate to camp there again; good choice guys!

 

It was a pleasure meeting all of the new faces and great grubbin gang! Thanks for the great times

As for the safari expedition, that's not quite what I had in mind but I must say we did venture to some remote plates where nobody has been in such a long time. Bummer we never made it thru to the end but it was some impressive sights along the way.

I've got some photos up in my photo gallery on my site : http://www.chaosedition.com/photogallery/index.asp

Enjoy!

 

http://joelrasmus.com/gallery/v/events/2006/mammoth/

 

thanks for all the pics can't wait to make a run out there some time..
sincity (Joel) what kind of pop top is that on top of your rig? that is too cool

 

It's an Autohome Maggiolina Airland. Thanks.

 

Oh, definitely didn't mean to leave anyone out. Thanks to Steve & Ken & everyone else that helped make this happen. Excellent work

 

Here's the panoramic shots I took. I didn't post the full size files (cause they're huge) but you can get an idea if you click on the thumbnails:

the lineup for bodie:


june lake:


laurel lake:


the lineup for laurel lakes:


I'll see about getting the rest of my pics hosted somewhere

Russell

 

Nice panos Russell!

 

so jealous!!!!!

you guys inspire all to drive out there....you guys tell good/short stories. i feel like i was practically there!

NICE PICS

 

my fav pic

 

So bummed that I couldn't make it out there. I couldn't get off work for the weekdays and a 6hr drive for only one day just isn't fair.

Everyone who went seems to be talking about the next trip already...kinda like the DV trip

Great pictures.

 

That fish was good, I had no idea it was your first one ever. I can't believe you shared it. By the way, when Jack sees your pic he gets all excited and says "hi Bob".


Lance, Joel, and Russel sweet pics! I'll have to hit you guys up for some. I also have some to email to folks once things calm down here.

Chris

 

chris,

yeah, that was a great experience catching that trout. many thanks to steve for his patient instruction and providing me the opportunity to do so! and i'm glad you had a piece of the fish. nothing beats FRESH fish!

hehe, give little jack a high five for me he's the best!

bob

 

Great photos guys. Sounds/looks like you had a great trip. Hopefully see some of ya at Pismo soon.

Cheers
Mark

 

Ok, finally got my pictures up.
The pictures are best viewed with IE so you can see the thumbnails. High resolution images available upon request.
http://www.robinhood4x4.com/gallery2...ammoth%202006/

I'll tell ya why I didn't recommend twin lakes at mammoth for camping...

My group stayed up there until Tuesday in a condo at Mammoth. On Monday we slept in until noon and then went out and hit twin lakes at mammoth for a little fishing. It was a little crowded on the water so we ended up going up to Lake Mary but didn't get a single bite. So then we went back to twin lakes and people had started to leave because it was threatening to rain. I jumped in the water with my float tube while Miki, Hiromi and Xavier fished from shore.

After about 45 minutes I had made my way around the lake and was getting close to where they were on shore, maybe 100 yards away. All of the sudden I heard somebody whistling and then the dogs started barking. I looked over and didn't see anything. I kept fishing. Then I heard my wife, Miki, yell at me to ask if I can see the bear. Bear?!? I look over and sure enough there's a bear on the water's edge about 50 yards from them. It disappears and then about 20 seconds later I see a bear off to my right about 50 yards from me swimming in the lake. Hmmm...2 bears!

Well, it starts swimming sorta toward me and I slowly paddle away. There's no way I can out paddle a bear. But I wasn't too worried. Damn thing probably scared my fish away. Anyway, it turned out there were 3 bears. The first bear was about 3 feet away from my wife, my friends and my dogs. The dogs were barking at the bear and the bear freaked out from the barking and the whistles and in trying to get away went straight toward the dogs. Miki grabbed the dogs in time and got out of the way.

In talking with some other people from the campgrounds, they said a bear attacked their tent at night and went for the dog food they had in the tent.



Anyway, that was the excitement for the day. The weather cooled off dramatically on monday and tuesday. Monday it sprinkled a little here and there. Tuesday when we were driving back home through yosemite it rained pretty hard.

On to the pics.

We had a visitor at the gas station and Miki freaked out at what she saw on my seat.


Bodie ghost town


The snow that stopped us


Walking down to Laural Lake


Coming back down


Bob caught in the act of vandalizm.




It was nice meeting everybody.

Oh, and basically, the reason I chose June lake for this event is because it's the best campground that can handle large groups. There are many campgrounds in the area that are much better than June, but they're either too small, don't take reservations, or have some other problem. For example, twin lakes at mammoth (I keep saying mammoth because there is also a twin lakes at bridgeport) has lots of bears, mosquitos and tourists. I'm not sure which of those are worse.

 

Makes sense. i've never camped at twin lakes mammoth before.. Stacey and I just drove around that area a bit Monday morning before we left and were awed by the scenery. It did look like a lot of people were camped there but the sites seemed to be pretty well segregated. As for the bears & mosquitos, i don't really care to mess with either one of those

p.s. Nice pics Steve I saved off a few of my taco. I'm still trying to find the best way to post my pics.

Russell

 

Russell, I just added this to my post, but if you want some high resolution images let me know.

 

Damn you, Steve!


...and to all those wondering about the significance of the kitty, you'll have to ask Lance's girlfriend...or Lance

 

Tisk Tisk lol

 

hey, it could've been worse!