Scenic Gondola Ride

When visiting a ski resort in the summer, it feels like a must to take their gondola ride up to the top of the highest mountain, even though it's pretty pricey.  But, the girls were free and we had a discount with our Devil's Postpile tickets, so we felt okay about it.

  

We zoomed out of the Mammoth Adventure Center and started climbing up, up, up immediately.  It was exciting enough to make us throw our hands in the air and squeal.

It was a little freaky too.  Especially when the wind made the gondola sway around.  But, the views were amazing, as long as you kept your eyes fixed on the mountains in the horizon, and not the ground far below!

The summit is over 11,000 ft. and I could feel the difference in the air when we got out.

A short hike led to this view of the string of lakes that give the town Mammoth Lakes its name.  Actually, one of them is Lake Mary-- the one we kayaked on in the morning!

The girls favorite part of this experience was finding snow at the top!  They had a snow ball fight and then had the brilliant idea to make summer-loving Olaf the snowman.

This became one of the my favorite memories of the whole trip.  We started talking about how our nephews' school did a music video to the song "Happy", showing kids dancing in all areas of the campus.  The girls decided in a gondola 11,000 ft. up would be a good place to show off their own "Happy" dance moves!