Slow Roll to Mammoth

My final two Burton Movie Shoots of the 2011 winter season are taking place in Mammoth Lakes, California. A good chunk of the team and media crew are converging on one of snowboarding’s all time hot spots to wrap up the action aspect of filming and get started on the ‘rider part’ introductions.

A Tuesday evening arrival was on my schedule, so I decided to take the slow roll to Mammoth from San Francisco…

I departed SF south of the airport via the San Mateo Bridge, hopping on the 580 East after passing through Hayward. Keeping an eastward pitch towards the Sierra Mountain Range, the decision was made to skip the easy route of taking the 5 North to the 50 East and meeting up with the 395 South. Instead, the rental car peeled off at the 120 East and started the passage through small highways and roads that would eventually bring me past Kirkwood, over Monitor Pass then hooking up with the 395.

My motivation was to stay off bigger highways with hoards of vehicles in favor of cruising through small towns with minimal populations. It makes for a much more scenic drive, the chance at finding some out of the way second-hand stores and bike shops, along with the laid back attitude of residents making their own ‘slow roll’ through life.

I included a snapshot of my driving map, noting my route with a black-arrowed line. If you have a look at a map yourself, you’ll see Route 108, 120 and Highway 4 go directly over the Sierra/Yosemite range for a quick shot into Mammoth. However, all three of these roads are closed during winter, with an annual opening date later in May. I’m really hoping at least one of these routes will be cleared of snow by the time I depart Mammoth back to SF, but we’ll see…it was a BIG winter around these parts, I’m sure the DOT crew has plenty to deal with…Blotto