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Mammoth Monthly
Every month, quality magazine journalism from on high.
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Because it's what we do
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A year ago about this time, we'd already been skiing and boarding for a month.
This year, Mammothists are skiing all right, but not at Canyon Lodge and certainly not at Little Eagle.
High temperatures, a result of a powerful high-pressure system that was centered over Oregon, left Mammoth with crystal clear, dry skies for most of November. Until this week, that made a desert out of Little Eagle and Canyon lodges, which were to have opened for skiing and snowboarding on Nov. 15.
One day after finishing a frustrated 32nd in the opening downhill of the season, former super G world champion Daron Rahlves (Sugar Bowl, CA) stepped onto his first podium Sunday, finishing third in a super G at Lake Louise. Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal, who won his first World Cup race, an event in which the top three racers were just eight-hundredths of a second apart.
By Dick Dorworth I was a ski racer from Reno in the 1950s and ’60s, and the mountain and people and experiences of Mammoth were a huge part of my formative years and beyond. Mammoth is part of my heart and life experience, a guide to the mind. Only the inaccuracy of nostalgia allows people to claim that the ’50s were a “better” time for American skiers, but both my heart and mind tell me it was a simpler era. Today’s Mammoth Mountain skier gets miles more skiing on better and more varied terrain than the skier of 50 years ago. But it does not seem to me that the personal satisfaction, well-being and joy of the day’s skiing endeavors are any better.
Having lived through last year’s hunk o’ burning thighs, you swore you'd be physically prepared for skiing and snowboarding this year. Are you? If not, cramming leg strength and cardio workouts the way you did for college exams is as dangerous to the outcome of your winter sports experiences as not doing them at all.
In spite of the first significant storm of the season, skiers, snowboarders, cross-country skaters and the rest of the winter throng are staying home in droves this weekend and next week. That means the slopes of Mammoth Mountain will once again be a kind of locals’ paradise, as will the aisles at Vons.
Sierra Club group hikes throughout the summer.
http://nevada.sierraclub.org
Friends of the Inyo Information
http://inyofriends.org
South Tufa Walks Naturalists lead a walk through a very nice something or other.
http://southtufantura.org
Summer Bird Walks Leaving from Mono County
http://birdybirdbird.com