Seven Ways to Enjoy the Sierras On and Off the Slopes

Here are seven ideas for wintertime family fun in Mono Country in the Eastern Sierras this season, from gondola rides to a real-life ghost town.

Kids 12 and under ski or snowboard for free at June Mountain, a family-friendly ski area with kids’ ski lessons, a terrain park and a bonfire every Saturday afternoon with Bucky, the June Mountain mascot.

In March, take the kids to the family fun zone at the annual June Lake Winter Festival, with snow games, an obstacle course, a snowman camp, a tots mini-sledding hill and live music.

Swap out your skis for a pair of skates and practice those figure eights at the Mammoth Lakes ice rink, located beneath the snowy mountain peaks. The rink is open seven days a week with public skating available daily.

Even non-skiers can enjoy the wintery mountain and forest views, courtesy of a Mammoth Mountain gondola ride that whisks riders from Mammoth Village to Canyon Lodge. The experience, complimentary for kids, also offers families a chance to explore Top of the Sierra, an interpretive center located in the Gondola building on Mammoth Mountain’s summit at 11,053 feet.

June Lake Mountain © Christian Pondella/Mono County Tourism

Take the kids to a parade, held every Saturday with Woolly, Mammoth’s Mountain’s mascot, who leads the fun with music, face painting and dancing. Every day, youngsters can enjoy Wooly’s Tube Park and Snow Play area, with six groomed lanes, a lift and a heated deck with snacks and hot cocoa.

Enjoy an afternoon sledding at locations throughout the region by grabbing a sledding map.

Make some memories with the family by exploring such Instagram-worthy spots as the boardwalks between Mono Lake’s eerie tufa towers, a natural formation made of calcium carbonate which serves as a habitat for more than 1 million birds every year. You can also visit Hot Creek, a scenic fly fishery which the older members of your family might recognize as a location in the John Wayne classic film, North by Northwest. Finally, if Mother Nature and the road conditions cooperate, head to Bodie, a ghost town with an historic state park that, in its day, was a real-life setting of the California gold rush. The town bustled in the late 1800s with more than 10,000 residents panning for gold and silver — and finding it. Nowadays, the town is abandoned, as are the nearly 200 buildings — including a church, a schoolhouse still full of desks, a barbershop and a saloon, complete with bottles and other remnants of Bodie’s former life.

Keep in mind that while the town is open year-round, the roads to the park close in snowy weather, so check the conditions before you head out. You can also support the preservation of the town by shopping at the Bodie Foundation’s new Bodie Mercantile store in Bridgeport, California.

Mono County, located just more than 300 miles north of Los Angeles, and 280 miles east of San Francisco, accesses the east entrance to Yosemite National Park.

You can get there by car on the all-weather U.S. Highway 395, or take advantage of new direct flights to Mammoth Yosemite Airport on United Airlines from Los Angeles (LAX) and Denver (DEN), which kicked off in December and complement the existing service from San Francisco (SFO).