Warthog Pinacate

Just a short note about Bentley. Despite his German heritage, he’s not fond of cold weather or snow. We’ve learned this on our ventures into the snow country. He takes his walks, but is ever-so-eager to get back to a warm condo or into the car.

But he surprised us the other night, when he accidentally stepped onto the partially frozen swimming pool at our condo. And the ice fractured and he was swimming. Fred heard him splash and thrash and pulled him out. We towelled him off, and started out to dinner.

Fred wanted to show me where Bentley fell in, and Bentley walked right up to the pool, stepped right onto the ice and fell in. Again.

Another towelling and we finally got off to dinner. Bentley’s no worse the wear for his dip. But I doubt he learned a darn thing!

For years, our ski trips have been planned in advance, dates crafted to fit the calendars of a group of busy friends. This year, Fred and I decided that for once, we’d be snow trackers, follow the weather reports for Mammoth, and strike when the snowstorms arrived.

I’m happy to disclose that our strategy was a success. We made our lodging reservations on Friday for Sunday arrival. And in the last four days, it’s probably the best snow conditions we’ve ever skiied. Two storm days brought the sweet skiing where the slopes have fresh tracks on every run. Wednesday gave us a sun filled, warm day to enjoy the new snow. The storm expected on Friday came a day early, so we get yet another dump of “pow”. We don’t mind a bit of bluster, so not everyone would enjoy every minute of the days, but boy, is there wonderful snow to be skiied.

I can’t recommend this spur of the moment planning enough!!!

Sunday Evening, our friends James and Min arrived from LA via Las Vegas. We were all excited about skiing together on Monday. James is a real expert, and he’s been coaching Min, who had never skiied before he started teaching her. We went pretty much all over - it’s impressive that Min just skis wherever. No fear. Late in the day, conditions got pretty icy, and Min took a scary fall and slide. But she seems to take it in stride, though she was a little banged up.

Monday and Tuesday were more warm spring conditions. Every day we went out, expecting that the snow would just be crummy, but through some miracle, we found great snow in several places.

On Tuesday, we were looking for a shortcut to return to our side of the mountain, but discovered the best snow of the day! Just below the McCoy Station is a run called Roger’s Ridge, and it was terrific.

Wednesday – SNOW!!! – we’ve been waiting for some new snow to refresh the runs. This morning, after a chilly and windy night, it started snowing. We waited for a while for some snow to accumulate before suiting up in warm gear. All of the lifts to the top of the mountain were closed. It was windy and cold and sometimes disorienting when the visibility faded. We both get dizzy when we can’t get our bearings. But how fun to have some fresh snow!

Thursday – The weather cleared up a bit. Just a few inches of snow on top of the hard-pack base. We met with our “heaven and hell” run. Remember Huevos Grande? Last week, it was great; just a little challenging at the top. Due to windy conditions today, the top was HORRIBLE. The wind had shaved any remaining flakes from the slopes, leaving an ice rink at about 40 degree slope. With a lot of serious edging, we managed to skid around the rock corner and take a moment to get our breath out of the wind and on some actual snow. Heavenly white, powdery, foot deep snow. the rest of the run was short, but both of us linked great turns all the way down and reallly enjoyed it. It’s good to (still) be alive.

Friday - Some more snow arrived - the snow gods know when we are leaving town. Or maybe they are just catering to the masses arriving for President’s Weekend. Carolyn’s knee was finally giving in, so she spent the morning in front of the fireplace, Fred took in a few hours of skiing.

We hit the road, then, on our way across the Sierras to visit Margaret and Troy, Carolyn’s sister and brother-in-law in Placerville. The snow had begun in earnest, and it was a slow and sloppy drive. Overnight in Placerville, then on the road again for a short visit with Carolyn’s dad in Cupertino.

Pictures to come as soon as Carolyn takes the time to work them over.

Around Mammoth, you’ll see many signs and bumper stickers admonishing us to “help our bears” or “save our bears”. They’re usually meant as reminders to keep your food trash away from the bears, so that they don’t become dependent on human food, start sleeping on park benches in the middle of town and panhandling among the tourists.

In our condo complex, all the trash bins have the following sign:
Please
Help the bears
- Place trash in bins
- Close and latch bins

This totally cracks me up – I have this image of a tourist instructing a nodding bear on the best way to open the bin and dispose of his tuna and beer cans. But maybe that’s just me (Carolyn).

But it’s real – when Fred was walking Bentley on Saturday night, he met with some folks on the road who had seen a bear ambling along the road. He leashed up Bentley at that point.

Even more interesting are the coyotes here. In Southern California, we’re used to having small, rangy reclusive coyotes. They are usually solo, once the cubs get to a certain age. Their diet is mostly vegetable, with small animals as an occasional dessert. Coyotes are big avocado eaters.

But here in the mountains, coyotes take on the behavior and appearance of wolves. They’re bigger, beefier, and travel in packs. Mountain coyotes hunt in packs; they’ll call out to a dog with their yippy barks or send a female in heat to lure an unsuspecting animal into an ambush. We’ve heard them calling to Bentley as soon as they hear his collar jingle. He almost fell for it one time, but he’s smart enough to have turned back before getting too far from Fred. Townies confirm that people just don’t let their animals out after dark.

Monday

On the slopes by 9:15 - a new record for this trip. Conditions “hard fast”. (Those are the runs, not us)

We did several runs from the top, where we find the snow to be the best. Dave’s Run, though chopped up, is still fun. We got some practice with solid frozen “crud”. It’s not very fun skiing, but it’s a good skill to have to be able to ski anywhere, anytime. Sunshine and blue skies make for a comfortable and fun day.

A leisurely lunch, and knocked off around 3:00.

Tuesday

More of the same – this is like spring skiing. The snow is hard most of the day. The groomed slopes are OK, but boring. Going into the trees or off the beaten track can be terrific, but it can also be terrible jouncing crud. We’re pretty comfortable just charging through and our new skis are just what we wanted: a good all mountain ski. We bought them on our earlier trip this month after demos of two or three skis. Fred liked the K2 Apache Recon and Carolyn chose the Völkl Attiva (their ladies’ brand) AC2. They’re very responsive skis. Last week, Carolyn learned that the Völkls really like high speed crud – um – not Carolyn’s fav.

The Rest of the Week

Eat breakfast, ski, lunch, ski, jacuzzi, shower, dinner, sleep, repeat as needed. Cookie cutter days: every morning warm and sunny. Had some great runs from the top, and the always reliable Chair 5 and Chair 3. We’re watching the weather reports in vain hopes of storms bringing new snow. Possibly next Weds.

Visited the Mammoth Clinic on Friday, as Carolyn’s cold refused to get better in the alpine dry air. Of all the medical services we’ve met with in recent times, this was one of the nicest. Friendly people, up to date tech and really fast in and out. Arriving at about 11:00, got an appt for 1:45. We’d virtually just set our butts down when we were called. In and out in less than 45 minutes with a full exam and Rx’s.

Skiing - Woo-hoo!

19 Days at Mammoth Mountain

Week One

Day One, Monday January 30

….had a slow start. Our arrival Sunday evening was after 11PM. Normally, that’s not enough to really slow us down, but Bentley, our Rottweiler, decided that he was not ready to settle in just yet. There were formalities he had to attend to. First, he had to make a thorough inspection of the place with his nose. And he is a very meticulous sniffer. After that, he was delighted to realize that this is a dry climate and that static electricity abounds! One of his favorite pastimes is to push his doggie bed around until he can make it spark. Then he drinks in that ozone fragrance and does it again. For hours.Even though he hasn’t had the opportunity to do this for months, both Fred and I recognized the rhythm: shuffle shuffle pause… shuffle shuffle pause… And on. Add that to some probably altitude sickness, and we didn’t have a really restful night. And then we had to gather us all our ski gear and escort Bentley to his first day at Doggie Day Care before we could make it to the slopes.

OK, so it was 11 before we made our first run. By starting later we avoided a frigid wind that died down and left a very comfortable sunny day. There had been a storm Friday night, so the slopes were in nice condition for packed powder runs. . By 1PM we started getting a very light dusting of corn snow, making the slopes even smoother.

My favorite run of the day was on “Haven’t the Foggiest”, which made for a nice warmup. Dinner at the condo.

It kept snowing until early evening and we were crossing our fingers and praying to the snow god for a fresh snow day Tuesday.

Day Two, Tuesday

Made it to Eagle Express before 10. About 5 inches of new snow – a bit on the heavy side, but nice all the same. Carolyn’s powder legs started to get their rhythm. Runs off the gondola were great – not sure if it was Upper Dry Creek or Huevos Grande, but that run and Dave’s were just fantastic with lots of new snow. We kept towards the trees a lot, where the snow was less tracked up.

Early quitting – about 1PM. Definitely a jacuzzi time!

Day Three, Wednesday — Skiing Uphill

Covered most of the mountain today. Still great conditions from Tuesday. We went all the way over the the chair 13/14 side. Nice snow everywhere, but it was especially nice among the trees.

Carolyn did a non-stop top to bottom from chair 10 Gold Rush down to the Mill, just for the heck of it while Fred made a phone call.

It was getting windy about 2PM – the chair lift was halted for a while. The wind is usually a nuisance, but today it helped out. The route to return to our condo pretty much requires that we get to the top of the mountain and take Dave’s Run to the Eagle Lodge side of the mountain. There’s a bit of a trek along the ridge, but the wind was at our backs, so we got a lift over to the crest of Dave’s. Skiing uphill…. unusual.

Dinner at Slocum’s: STEAKS

Day Four, Thursday Groundhog Day

Our plan was to ski if there was new snow and reasonable conditions. The decision was easy: no new snow and what looked like a whiteout on the mountain.

Good day for playing on the computer, reading and taking in the little Groundhog day celebration. At the Village, “West Coast Ollie” was called on to challenge his Pennsylvania cohort. Along with a band playing and a petting zoo.

Day 5, Friday

Sunshine everywhere and very warm!

Took Chair 23 and had some great runs in Drop Out chutes (lumpy at the top, but smooth and powdery just below.)

The ski passes and extended time allow us a little more leisure than usual. One a two day trip, at $72 bucks a day (or something like that) you don’t want to miss a minute of ski time. And also, we don’t want to overdo it early in the trip. We can always overdo it later!

Knowing we had two days of rest ahead, we skiied a little longer; his was our longest day so far – on the slopes before 10 and fried our legs until 3:15. Som really nice kids we met in the parking lot thought it was funny that we were planning to take the weekend off. Kind of like our workweek is skiing. Well, it is!

Days 6 and 7, Saturday and Sunday

Activity in the village increased as the weekend travelers arrived, but we were lounging or (Fred) working on his Brew application. We’re liking this idea of taking off the weekends and resting our legs.