Going to the Mammoth Lakes area for some camping. While I was browsing their visitors website, I found this page on 4WD Off-Roading

Anyone know about these trails? Do they require more than a stock X can do?

Any particular trails the best?

What are your suggestions for campsites?

Thanks

If the Mammoth Lakes chamber of commerce and tourism department are encouraging 4WD backcountry driving, you can be certain that any stock high-clearance 4WD can handle the trails with aplomb. There'd be too much liability if people took their stock 4x4's out and continuously got them stuck on trails advertised in official literatature. I'd wager that even a RAV4 could drive on the trails they're mentioning.

Never been there...but I found a summary of the various "4WD high clearance" OHV routes in the area:
CLICK

There's some descriptions...some sound nice especially A13 towards the bottom of the page.

Take lots of pictures!

Hot Creek Hatchery Road is a maintained dirt road.
If sherwin creek road is the one I'm thinking of, it too is a maintained dirt road.

Never used Cold springs laural pond road, but I'm betting it is a maintained dirt road.

Laural Lakes road can be a decent trail, depending on when it was last graded. A stock truck should be able to make it no problem. I saw a subaru back there once, but he had to be scraping the whole way through. It is a very nice, scenic drive though, and laural lakes are up at 10,000 feet which means they have golden trout. Catch and release only, artificial lures only. I'd say it's slightly less difficult than Sour Grass trail.

I'm pretty sure all the orange colored roads going to Crawley are dirt roads that any car can get through.

I'll have to check out the other ones though, the Crater ones sound cool.

Thanks for the help. I was finally able to figure out what was what with the link you provided and the OHV map I found on the Mammoth visitors site. Several of the routes look good to me. I will post some pictures after the trip. It's the first week in August.

Which ones are you thinking of doing?

A13 up to June Lake looks good. I will probably try at least one other. Maybe along one just for the scenery like A1 or A2.

Any sugggestions?

June lake is cool... and I have seen that road.. it's fairly well maintained.. but that was years ago when I was there.

Did you mean A13 up to Laurel Lakes? That's what the map says A13 is. I highly recommend it.

There are a bunch of dirt roads that you can wander around on. We went out to the Obsidian Dome and the road was just a rough dirt road. On the opposite side of 395 is a dirt road that leads to some chalk mines. They're active mines so you can't walk around them, but you can see them from a distance and see some big white bluffs.

If you need camping info or anything else about mamoth, I know the place pretty well. I've been going up there for fishing since I was a little kid.

Yea, I did mean Laurel Lakes. So what are some good campgrounds there? Maybe near one of the lakes. Are there any 4x4 trails there that are real 4x4, not just dirt roads?

I know there are real 4x4 trails up there, but I don't know where. I've only gotten into wheeling in the past couple years so I'm not too familiar with them. You might want to look up the mammoth 4wheeling club over there. There are also some books that show the trails.

One of the nicest campgrounds is the one at Convict lake. It has private flush toilets (not stalls) and a lot of the camp spaces are surrounded by trees. The only problem is that it somewhat small and fills up quick so it's best to get there before the weekend crowd.

There is also a campground sort of near gull lake (in the June lake Loop) that I really like. It's called Reversed Creek Campground. It's kinda small but not too well known so getting a campsite is hit and miss for the weekend crowd. It has flush toilets and bear boxes. Take the southern entrance to the June Lake loop and keep going for about 3 miles. You'll see a small sign on the left that says Reversed Creek Campground. If you blink, you'll miss the sign.

Our old standby campgound is Oh! ridge at June lake. It's a big campground and I've always been able to get a campsite there, even at midnight on a friday (3day weekends excluded). There's no trees though and it can get windy at times, some sites have built in windbreaks. Flush toilets available.

There are more primative campgrounds at the obsidian dome and on tioga pass (before going up the grade). They have pit style toilets and no running water.

All the lakes in the area have campgrounds. I'd avoid the campgrounds in mammoth itself, they're the more popular ones where all the city people go. You'll have kids running around and people playing loud music.

Thanks Robinhood, thats some helpfull info. Will probably have problems with those campgrounds as we won't be leaving until Saturday. Is there a name for the campground at Convict Lake? Maybe we could get lucky and still find a spot.

http://www.convictlake.com/campground.html

A lot of these campgrounds can be found by a google search. Unfortunately the website says no reservations are available for convict. Some places take reservations.

What are you going to be doing there? Hiking, fishing, flyfishing, just general exploration by vehicle? How long will you be there? How far will you be willing to drive to get to where you want to go? Have you been to the area before?

I usually roam around from as far south as rock creek lake to as far north as Lake Virginia and sometimes even as far as bridgeport. Convict is on the southern end so if you're going to Bridgeport it's a fairly long drive. I like to stay in the June lake area because it's a little more centrally located. The town of Mammoth is about 20 minutes south and Virginia is about 30-40 minutes north.

I think I'm going to be in the area aug 14th and 15th.

Were just going for 4 days - then off to Las Vegas for 4 more. I was thinking the June Lake area would be best. Will try Reversed Creek first. The others in the area that I like have no reservations available. If we have to, I guess we can go to OH Ridge or just sleep in the X somewhere.

Were only going to be exploring in the X and some hiking and sightseeing.

Ok, sounds like you have a decent amount of time. The June lake area sounds like the best place for you. Oh ridge isn't all that bad. You can get reservations there so you can probably request a site near the few trees and get a windblock. When the weekend crowd leaves you can move and get pretty much any campsite in any of the campgrounds.

Take a ride up to the ghost town of Bodie, check out the hot springs at Hot Creek (bring your bathing suit if you want to hop in), all the lakes have pretty nice hiking. You can checkout Devils Post Pile in mammoth, but you have to pay and take a shuttle in. DPP is a rock formation in which the rocks are hexagonally shaped from volcanic action. Not sure if it's worth paying to see it, but if geology is your thing...

Yosemite is pretty close so you can make a trip out there on one of the weekdays when the crowds die down.

I hear the restaurant at convict lake is pretty good. On your way to vegas, be sure to stop at Schat's bakery and get some bread and pies. Best bakery ever. I wish I could tell you where the cheapest gas is, but it's out in the middle of nowhere on 395 and I couldn't even describe it.

Thanks for all the great information. Our plans have slightly changed. We will be heading for the Shaver Lake area staying at Dinkey Campground. I have read that their are a couple easy trails in the area that a stock Xterra can handle.

Were going to skip driving to Las Vegas, and fly instead. Got a great deal on Travelocity. $550 for two people, 4 nights at the Hilton and RT Air from SJ. Not too bad.