The New Scene

January 14, 2008

Egad what a snarl over at the old Chair 9 this past weekend, huh?

Skiers and snowboarders headed over to the new lift, "Cloud Nine Express," only to get caught on the 405 during the morning rush. Thank God for the lunch break and the San Diego Chargers.

By the time the Bolts kicked off at one o'clock, the whole ski hill more or less emptied, except for the women and children and the baffled Euros. At that point, Mammoth Mountain basically turned into California's largest bar. The Jagermeister people ought to give us an award.

Me? I caught the game in fits and starts, leaving wherever I was at the quarter breaks, play reviews and injury breaks. That gave me plenty off ski time, although it caused the usual confusion. What's L.T. doing on the sideline? Where is Rivers?

By the time the Good Guys had beaten down Indy the ski day was basically over but the evening turned out to be just great. The ski hill brought back its Festival off Lights fireworks show over at Canyon Lodge, and it was really fantastic. You could see the show all over town. In a very cool move, the ski hill even lit some chairlift lines, like over at Lincoln Mountain.

That was cool.

Other stuff:

I heard the word "Dude" 4,567 times on Saturday alone.

On one chairlift, I heard a guy say, "I always wanted to be on Ski Patrol, Dude, but I wouldn't want to be helping people all the time, you know?"

On another chairlift, I heard a group scheming on how to get a Mammoth address so they could get the "Locals' Ski Pass." Ain't no such thing, but what the hey?

Chairlift eavesdropping is great this time of year. There's more cluelessness than at a South Carolina Primary. Good times, all around.

Oh, and one last thing. That theory that the new Cloud Nine would somehow ease the jam at Chair 2/Stump Alley Express turns out to have been a pure hallucination. At least so far.

That's it for now. Off to see how the midweek crowd handles itself.

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