There’s a ton of sightseeing to be done on the way between Los Angeles and Mammoth, but we are always blinded by the snow and don’t care about anything else. On the way up on Friday we once again drove by the Burro Schmidt’s Tunnel sign and said “yeah, we should visit it some time”. Since “some time” tend to happen “never”, I just threw it out there… why don’t we stop by on the way home? Said and done! Since we’re not skiing we could leave early, stop by the tunnel for a couple of hours and still be home in good time.
10 miles on a dirt/sand road? No problem!
I didn’t really know what to expect, all I knew about the tunnel was that Schmidt dug it out so that his donkeys wouldn’t have to hike over the ridge between the mining area and the smelter.
So it took him 38 years to complete the tunnel. During that time, someone had built a different road so there were no real need for the tunnel anymore, but I guess he was a little stubborn and wanted to complete the tunnel anyway.
He even made a storage!
We made it out to the other side, the views are stunning!
