Mammoth with two cavapoos and a Model Y
The plan: drive over Tioga, sleep in the car, and hike Duck Pass trail up to Barney Lake with my two dogs.
Been wanting to get out of the Bay for a bit, so here’s the plan. Drive from Sunnyvale to Mammoth Lakes, sleep in the Model Y, and hike Duck Pass trail up to Barney Lake with my two cavapoos.
The drive is about 250 miles. Fastest way is out through Livermore, across the Central Valley, and straight through Yosemite on Tioga Road, over Tioga Pass at almost 10,000 feet, then down to Lee Vining and south on 395 to Mammoth. Around six hours if nobody needs a potty break, which, with two dogs, someone will.
The actual route. It drives itself when it comes into view; hit play to drive it again. The line goes from blue to amber as the road climbs. Road from OpenStreetMap, terrain from SRTM elevation data.
Tioga is the catch. It’s open right now, but it shuts for the winter with the first big storm, and last year that was November 12. So I’m checking the park’s road conditions page right up until we leave. If it closes, the backup is going up through Tahoe and down 395, which adds a couple of hours. Also, the park stops allowing overnight parking along Tioga on October 15, so no sleeping in the car inside Yosemite on the way.
Charging I’m not too worried about. I’ll top up in the Valley before the climb. Going up to 10,000 feet eats range, the long way down to Lee Vining gives a good chunk of it back, and Mammoth has a Supercharger in town.
Sleeping in the car is the fun part. Seats down, a mattress in the back, Camp Mode on so it stays warm all night. It gets below freezing up there this time of year, so I want to roll in with a decent battery, since running the heat all night isn’t free. I can’t just pull over anywhere though. There’s no dispersed camping around Mammoth Lakes, so it’s a campground. And bears. Bears up there do break into cars, so all the food, dog food included, goes in the bear box and not the car.
Then the actual reason for the trip. Duck Pass trail starts at Coldwater, up in the Lakes Basin, at a little over 9,000 feet. You pass Arrowhead Lake, then Skelton Lake, and then Barney Lake, which sits right under the pass. That’s about 5.4 miles round trip with around 1,200 feet of climbing.
Two dogs, one trail. The numbers are approximate, from trail guides, so take the exact heights with a grain of salt.
Dogs are allowed on leash, which works for us. The trail keeps going past Barney up to Duck Pass itself, but I’m not doing that with these two. Barney is where we turn around.
Few things I’m thinking about for the pups. They’re small and the trail is a lot of rocky granite, so I’ll keep an eye on their paws and carry them over the rough bits if they need it. Altitude hits dogs too, so we’re going slow with lots of breaks. I’m carrying water for them instead of letting them drink from the lakes. And mornings will be cold, so they get their jackets whether they like it or not.
One more thing. The road up to the Lakes Basin closes for the season once winter shows up, usually around the start of November, so this has to happen soon.
That’s the plan. I’ll post how it actually goes, probably with way too many photos of the dogs.