The front hallway at Nate Wallace and Todd Miller's house is cluttered with toys-skis of all shapes and sizes, snowboards, teli gear, various pairs of boots, and mis-matched poles. In the living room, it's more of the same-gear shrapnel everywhere, especially near the fireplace: goggles, hats, mittens. The whole house smells like an infusion of dirty socks and warm plastic. The view is supposedly insane through the huge windows that overlook the valley, but I haven't seen it yet. I've been in Mammoth for three days in a whiteout. The mountain has been closed the past two days due to high winds and its dumping something fierce out there. We've been inside drinking beers, watching television and eating too much.
"It's pretty much all or nothing at this place," says Hans, one of the six roommates (including girlfriends) who occupy the house this season. "Just be patient. You'll get yours." The wind gusts, rattling the large windows a little more fiercely than I would like. The towering pines sway and bend as if they're about to snap. There's something eerie about it. I decide that this place, located smack in the middle of the desert some five hours from L.A., scares me. The last time I was here, only a few runs were open and four somewhat large earthquakes rattled the town in one 24 hour period (I guess it was due to volcanic activity-like, Mammoth is actually a volcano that they say is gonna blow one of these days). "Tomorrow will be a powder day," Hans says, interrupting my train of thought. I decide that this raging storm is almost as intimidating as the earthquakes. Almost.
Appropriately named, everything about Mammoth seems excessively large. Like the crazy yellow town snow removal vehicles that have tires that are about 20 feet tall and look like Tonka toys, and the trees, and the steep, pointy roofs that top most the houses, and based on what I can tell from the map, the resort: It tops out at just over 11,000 feet with a 3,000 foot vertical, has 27 lifts (seven of which are high-speed quads), two gondolas (one brand new this season) and 3,500 acres of skiable terrain. It's one of the select few resorts in the U.S. with "big mountain" features like steeps, chutes, cliffs, and wide-open bowls in-bounds. The upper mountain is littered with harrowing cliff bands, cornices, and pinner chutes that have been the training ground for some of the best skiers and snowboarders in the world, including Glen Plake, two-time World Extreme Snowboard Champion Steve Klassen and a handful of professional freeskiers and snowboarders.
I quickly discover that at Mammoth, snowfall is typically recorded in feet, not inches. They just don't get "snow flurries." It's either those sunny California days or storms like these, raging, gnarly beasts that consistently blow in off the Pacific Coast and dump ridiculous amounts of snow on the rocky, tall peaks of the Southern Sierras. Over the course of a normal winter season, the town is literally buried under thick, drooping snowbanks that line the streets of Mammoth Lakes like gigantic walls, swallowing cars, street signs, and even houses. The boys at Todd's house have their own snowplow. If you don't have a snowplow or a garage, parking on the streets isn't really an option. Hans does it, and at some point every spring he digs his car out to make sure its still there.
In the morning, it's a cluster. Hans was right. The mountain is finally open. There's lots of clacking and clanking going on as everyone scurries to get their shit together and get out the door as soon as possible. "Dude, do you think they'll pop the top?" Todd asks. Hans clarifies for me that the gondola to the upper mountain is often closed due to high winds. The locals all have their own strategies about how to get that first car to the top, whether it's doing laps on the lower mountain and hoping you hit the mid-station at the right time, or simply waiting in line. It's pretty much a toss up, but as I discover later that day, makes for some pretty good excitement.
Nate grew up in Mammoth his whole life so I figure I'll stick close to him. Except he's not exactly a nice guy, especially on a powder day. An aspiring freeskier, he's probably hit more lines in the valley than anyone, particularly in the backcountry where he has done much exploration via snowmobile and by foot. He hangs with Plake quite a bit, and he and Hans have done several feature stories together for Powder magazine, always with the same basic philosophy: helicopters are a joke. Being flown to the top of perfect peaks with a pair of fat skis just isn't skiing. What they do is.
I'm able to stick with Nate longer than I thought, and Hans is an old friend from college, excited to show me around. We make our way over from the Canyon Lodge area where their house is to Chair 22, access to the best tree-skiing on the mountain. It's like a whole area onto itself, with little rock drops and rollers and undulations and tight steep lines in the trees. It's also home to the infamous Avy Chutes, one of the steeper runs on the lower mountain. Hans gives me a few hints on how to make smooth hop turns on my snowboard in the heavier, thicker snow. It takes a lot of muscle.
From there, we traverse over to the Main Lodge area which is the main vein for the entire mountain. This year, they've put in a pretty impressive halfpipe and snowboard park that's even open at night and by no means limited to snowboarders. Maybe it's a California thing, but I've never seen so many ripping skiers in the halfpipe. Little guys, too. They all wear helmets and sweatshirts and will drop in all nonchalantly and throw backflips off the lip and land on the deck. Whatever.
The facilities at Mammoth don't exactly have the charm or character of the mid-mountain lodge at Vail. The Canyon Lodge looks more like a bomb shelter. It's a massive cement building with little to no aesthetic appeal. The old Main Lodge is a little better, but still tacky and very seventies, like most the condos I've seen in town. Apparently, no one in Mammoth Lakes has had any desire to modernize since then. But that mood is somehow fitting to the recluse feel of the area. Freak out.
Word is out that the top is going to open so the "pop the top" games begin. Me and Hans choose to lap it, riding the lower gondie up only to find out each time that the top is still closed. So we race down to the bottom again with the hopes that we'll hit it right next time. Nate chooses to wait it out in line. After 45 minutes of straight-running the lower mountain groomers, the upper gondola finally opens. Nate wins. He gets first car. We get eighth, but it doesn't matter. When I finally get to the top, its like my eyes are open for the first time in three days. On one side, the Minarets meet the sky in a series of jagged peaks that look like something out of the Alps. On the other, the dry, desert-like Sierras line the horizon for hundreds of miles. Below, the wide-open bowls are unlike anything I've seen in-bounds and still relatively untracked. I drop in for a series of turns that makes my head spin, almost in a sexual way.
It was well worth the wait. |
