Mammoth Camping - Day 3

The day started out nicely with the girls enjoying hot cocoa in Auntie's kitchen away from home. After hot cocoa, the girls sat at the table and played with McKenzie and Haylee's dollhouse.After a yummy breakfast of Daddy's french toast, we cleaned up and headed out to do a little bit of sightseeing. Our first destination was to see about riding the gondolas up Mammoth Mountain. We were able to and whoa, what an awesome experience. Hannah enjoyed the ride up, but once we got off and went exploring about the top of the mountain, she got a little scared and stayed in the center of the mountain, away from any edges. If only Rachel was that cautious. LOL. Because of Hannah's fear, the girls and I went back inside the little interpretive center and cafe and had a snack while Daddy took the pictures to put together a 360 degree panoramic picture from atop Mammoth Mountain. The interpretive center was pretty cool. There were about 16 of these binocular-like things that each focused on a different mountain peak, and then just below it, gave the name of the mountain you were looking at, it's elevation and a little history of it. It was really cool. Heading back down the mountain, Hannah wanted to check out the rock climbing wall. For months, she's been practicing rock climbing (side to side, as opposed to up) at California Adventure. After sitting and watching other kids, Hannah said she wanted to do it. Steven and I were both very surprised and proud that she did it. She did a great job at getting going, and with a little pushing and encouragement from us and the guide, she made it just past the hard stuff before she begged to be let down. After rock climbing, we grabbed some lunch and then headed out for our next adventure. We boarded a shuttle bus that took us 13 miles down into a canyon. The first stop was The Devils Postpile National Monument. It was about a half mile hike in and then back out again. The trail was surrounded with beautiful trees and green meadows. Upon arriving at the Postpile, Hannah wasn't exactly too thrilled about having walked simply to see a pile a rocks. LOL. We walked back to board the shuttle to our next destination, a mile and a quarter hike to what we heard was a beautiful waterfall, Rainbow Falls. The hike was a tough one, and we were unprepared. We had no water with us and due to a forest fire 15 years ago, the trees all but stumps and provided no shade. So the hike was a hot one. Once to the waterfall, it was a beautiful site to see. But now we were faced with hiking back out. As we were hiking back out, Hannah was walking about 100 feet ahead of us, her head hanging low, dragging her walking stick she'd found, when all of a sudden this deer pranced onto the trail in front of her. The deer looked at her, Hannah looked at it, and they both took off running. LOL. The deer had come so close and was unexpected that it scared Hannah. But what a sight to see have seen that. There ended up being three deer right off to the path and they were beautiful. We finally made it back to the shuttle stop and took it back to our car. Everyone had kinda done their own thing this afternoon, grabbing late lunches along the way. So we didn't have dinner together. We on the other hand, went back to the condo where Gramma and Papa were 'camping' and took advantage of the showers. It was nice to get cleaned up and out of the dirt for a bit. We eventually headed back to our campsite and soon after it was bedtime for the girls, Hannah fell asleep before we were even done getting Rachel ready for bed. That hike really wore us out.

To see all the pictures from our Mammoth Camping trip, please go to Mammoth Camping Part 1 and Mammoth Camping Part 2.