If you and your Porsche did not make it to Mammoth Lakes June 17-19 for the 2022 Edition of the Mammoth High Alpine Porsche Tour you missed a great weekend of driving and camaraderie that your Porsche may not forgive ... at least until next June when we do it again. This year's Tour included 71 people and 41 Porsches from three Zone 7 regions (Diablo, Golden Gate, and Sierra Nevada), plus one Porsche from the Los Angeles region of Zone 8. The picture of the Whoop-De-Do's was taken by Birgit (GGR). At the right speed your Porsche can become slightly airborne at the top of each Whoop-De-Do.
It was cooler this year than is typical in Mammoth Lakes in mid-June although there was plenty of sunshine and blue skies to enjoy. Tour events began with a Meet & Greet Friday night at the Eatery/Mammoth Brewing (pictures below), followed by a drive Saturday morning, lunch at the Eatery, and cumulating with a dinner Saturday night at Burgers Restaurant. As usual, the Sierra Nevada Region was your host region with Millie Smith and Mark Coronado doing the planning for dining and lodging in Mammoth Lakes. Unfortunately, we could not reach an agreement with the town of Mammoth Lakes to display our Porsches this year along Canyon Road on Saturday afternoon as we usually do ... we'll try to bring this popular Tour event back next year.
The main event of the weekend was the 116 mile drive Saturday morning. Sierra Nevada Region members were out in front of Puerto Vallarta at 7 am Saturday morning to park participant Porsches and seeing that participants signed the PCA waiver and received packets with schedule, turn-by-turn driving instructions and maps. The temperature was 30 degrees at 7 am, 10 degrees cooler than last year, reaching the low 70’s by noon.
This year we ran two tour groups, one group around our route in the clockwise direction and other group in the counterclockwise direction. The clockwise tour group became fragmented on CA 120 East beyond Mono Lake when they had to pass a pair of slow-moving camper rigs that would not pull over. This resulted in the last 4 Porsches initially missing the right turn onto Benton Crossing Road, making a U-turn 4 miles down the road to get back to Benton Crossing. The counterclockwise (GGR) group reported no problems.
Special thanks to Gilbert Bouzeid for bringing 28 Porsches from the Golden Gate Region. Tour originators Mark Coronado and Greg Kugler were unable to attend this year. Maybe they’ll make it next year.
If you took a self-drive up to Minaret Vista (9265′) the panel below is part of what you saw, with the Minarets on the left and Mt Banner and Mt Ritter on the right.
