Just got back from Mammoth, and it was a very interesting and mostly fun experience. Prior to going, a mtber friend who had just been there recently, told me that the trail “conditions” weren’t great, and that hopefully the maintenance crews would have things in good shape when I got there. Haha! Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
Every trail-and there are many-were covered with at least 4-8" of sand, gravel and shale, making traction impossible. When you rode through it, you would set off a HUGE dust cloud that could be seen for miles! (The wind gusts were up to 45 mph!) On the steeps this was suicide, lol. But I tried to make the best of it, by going off to the flanks, and finding stuff like tree trunks, boulders, and whatever else to play on.
I did get some decent footage and worked on editing the video in my hotel room last night, so it’s almost ready. And then this morning, I met with a staff photographer from the “Mammoth Times”, and she got tons of action shots for both the newspaper, and a magazine that will be out sometime next year.
Probably the most “entertaining” aspects of the video would be my ride up the mountain in the Gondola-all alone-and I was petrified. To keep myself from going totally crazy with fear, I started doing a spoof of this, lol! It was requested a while back from a forum member, but I think this is about as far as I’ll take it haha. (about the 1:22 mark)
And then there’s the really, really bad UPD I had trying to ride down some logs. the last log was at a weird angle and it pitched me off. I did a swan dive hard into the ground, and my right shoulder took most of the brunt! It’s also in the vid. So, overall it was fun, and the vid should be up in the next couple days. 
