After completing the Mojave Trail it was time to start wandering in the direction of home. We had one more potential stop in our plans, and we had enough days left to do it. We headed north to Death Valley. We had a side trip on the way north to the China Ranch Date Farm near Tecopa. Having never seen Date Palms before, but loving dates, I was immediately impressed to see this little oasis.
We took a walk around the plantation and enjoyed a date shake. Many of the palms were loaded with dates which looked ready to harvest. Yum.
It wasn’t long after finishing the White Rim Trail and having a spectacular time, that we started wondering what was next. What other ‘trails’ were out there to explore? It wasn’t too long before we settled on the Mojave Trail. The rest of our 2018 California Road Trip formed around seeing the trail. The trail is a ~ 140 mile stretch used historically by Native Americans and later developed into a wagon route between the Colorado River and the Mojave River between multiple desert watering holes.
After a day of checking out Bodie and Mono Lake we thought we’d spend the day hiking somewhere in the Sierras. We headed south a bit and thought maybe a trail in the Mammoth area would get us up in the mountains for some good views. As we pulled though Mammoth Lakes we started to notice that there were quite a few people about, and as we reached the main lodge area the parking lot was starting to look full. Here it was well more than a week before Thanksgiving, and Mammoth Mountain was in full operation spraying ice on the mountain for people to ski on. I was caught off guard with such a crowd flocking to ski on manufactured ice in the fall.
It always baffles me that people are so excited to ski when there isn’t any snow, but in the spring, when the snow is at its deepest and the weather is at its best, the crowds move on to other endeavors.
Due to the resort being open the road was blocked and we were thwarted from our original plan. We quickly broke out the maps and picked out another trail with a few lakes as a destination. Before too long we were on the trail to Emerald Lake.
