November 23 (Thanksgiving) – 26, 2017.
After visiting Mono Lake and Panum Crater, I next visited Mammoth Lakes. I decided to visit the town when I got a message on Facebook from a follower who lived there. She’d been following my travels and knew I was close by and invited me to meet for coffee. The minute I met her I liked her, and she was gracious enough to give me a tour of the town and surrounding area. It was a lovely way to spend Thanksgiving Day.
In the tour, she showed me where a few of the local hot springs were, and I decided to camp there for a few days. I was in heaven.
The town of Mammoth Lakes is located on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on top of a Caldera. You might wonder why anyone would build a town on top of a caldera? Yup, well me too.
The Long Valley caldera is a giant bowl-shaped depression, approximately 20 miles (32 km) wide, surrounded by mountains, but open to the southeast. The elevation of the bottom of the bowl ranges from 6,500 to 8,500 feet (2,000 to 2,600 m), being higher in the west.
The hot springs are located in a meadow SE of Mammoth Lakes. There are several named ones, and some that you just kind of find by looking for rising steam.
I spent several nights in a few different locations, trying out different pools and tubs. When I finally left the area, I asked myself why?
I even liked the town of Mammoth Lakes, and I don’t like many towns. It was pretty crazy when I was there because it’s a ski town and there was snow on the slopes, but I thought it might be a little less crowded in summer and have decided to see about getting a job there for the summer of 2018. It can’t possibly be any worse than Estes Park, Colorado, in terms of tourist numbers, and I’d have a whole new set of mountains to explore, including Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks on the west side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of my travels during the winter of 2017/2018.
Roxy ~ A Nomad for Nature
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A Nomad for Nature 
Where did you take the heading photo? It’s such a beautiful location and that is one pointy mountain!
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Pilot Peak in Wyoming –
there are two different versions of it on my web page here: https://tranquillightphotography.pixels.com/featured/pilot-peak-in-the-fall-tranquil-light-photography.html
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When you seriously ask yourself “why” you’re at one of those spots in life that don’t come often.
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That is so true. I had an answer this time of course; snow on the way, on my way to the RTR, and so on, but asking myself that question had me looking deeper, and I liked what I saw, so I’ve decided to return this summer and give it a try as a summer location for working. I’ve been looking for a new summer spot for many years, and I may have found it.
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Mammoth Lake sounds wonderful!
The whole area there is just lovely, so much to see and explore.
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