Day #41 - 4/22/2011 - Mammoth Lakes, CA - 10 Runs, 11628 vertical feet

A beautiful morning with blue skies, light winds, a mountain filled with open chairlifts and fresh powder.  The lifts started at 8:30am and I was there.  

Okay...so maybe I wasn't the first one in the lift line...but I was the happiest.  A little over two weeks ago, we were  paralleling the Mexican border on US90 through Texas.  And, now, I as going to kick up some powder.

Up the first chair, I headed directly to the nearest long run, Cloud 9 Express, a 6 minute ride providing a run a mile long with a 1650’ vertical drop. 

When I was here in February, I topped 60mph on the downhill. 

From the top of the run, looking down at the expanse of the run, I saw acres of ungroomed powder punctuated with trees and no one else.  With no grooming of the run to indicate  “go here”, I was free to cruise wherever, without constraints, into the trees and back out…6½ minutes of euphoria (maximum velocity=27.6mph...pretty slow for me, but it was deep powder) taking me back to the lift line…where I was the only one there.

I made my way to another favorite part of the mountain, Upper Dry Creek.  This area gets moguled out pretty quickly, but today, I was the first person there.

A mountain of fresh powder with no human obstacles in sight.  I don't think I had ever seen this part of the mountain looking absolutely pristine before.  Hey...let's go violate the snow!

A few runs later and I was at the gondola, enjoying the view on the way to the summit.  Mammoth Summit tops out at 11035'.

The summit sign, in the lower left portion of the picture, is nearly buried.  Early in the season, the sign towers  10' over my head.  Mammoth has received record snowfall this year.

After several excellent runs, I met up with an old friend, Ellyn Ashida, my first resident from the start of my internship in 6/1981.   Ellyn lives in Los Angeles and is a frequent visitor to Mammoth.  We happened to be on the mountain at the same time and arranged to get together.

Ellyn and I have known each other for almost 30 years, dating to my first week of internship.  She is one of my favorite people. 

 Ellyn and I did some runs together, then parted, meeting later in the day for dinner.  What a great day.