Winter in Mammoth is great, but summer is when it shines
Twin Falls was roaring and there was talk of trout near its base. Those were all the excuses Randy Mayer needed.
Mayer put on his Dodgers hat, gathered up his sons West and Van, hopped in a skiff on Upper Twin Lake and launched a little Mammoth Lakes family adventure.
"It's the best up here in the summer," said Mayer, who splits his time between Los Angeles and Mammoth. "Most people don't know it. You can hike to a different lake every day."
Winter is what made Mammoth famous, and it still makes the Mammoth Mountain resort a big chunk of its money, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of travelers who head that way from L.A. with snowboards and skis. But summer actually brings more visitors to this part of Mono County — hikers, anglers, birders, mountain bikers and multisport families like the Mayers.
The pandemic has underlined that fact. As this summer begins, thousands of Southern California families are (population:) and the Mammoth Mountain resort next door. Though fishing was the area's summer mainstay for decades (and remains an option now), many never get around to it.
