serfryydr

Quick weekend trips are one of my favorite things around.  There’s nothing better than shaking off the week behind me with a well timed adventure.

Be it into wide open spaces or just a new city it seems that getting out of town always brings some sort of new perspective on my life, my surroundings, and of course the world around me.  I always come home feeling refreshed and revived (although sometimes tired, but that’s a different story)!

They are also one of the best attributes of living in the middle of southern California.  The age-old adage that you’ve all heard is in fact true: surf and ski in the same day (if you wake up really early in the morning at least)!!

This weekend saw me hopping in a car with 6 of my friends (ok, we took three cars) and driving the four and half hours up to Mammoth Mountain for two days of snowboarding, hot-tubing, and good times.

The mountain is 300 miles northeast of Los Angeles and one of the west coast’s premiere mountain resorts.  It’s also the first place I strapped on a pair of skis when I was two years old (even though I snowboard now I remember my beginnings…).  On top of it being awesome, it holds a fair amount of nostalgia for me.  

Mammoth had just gotten 7 inches of fresh pow about 4 days before I got there and is reporting 12-foot bases at some points on the mountain.  Driving through town there are 20 foot plus snow banks on the side of roads from all of the plowing that has to be done.  Imagine driving down the main street in your town and not being able to see the shops because the piles of snow are too high!  That’s what Mammoth looks like right now.  With the sun shinning and puffy white clouds floating gently in the bright blue mountain skies.

Two days on that mountain is like spending 15 minutes in your favorite clothing store without trying anything on. Amazing nonetheless but slightly agonizing with the thought of all the missed opportunity.

This was the first time I ever explored the backside of the mountain.  Wow!  What was I missing!?!

It takes about three lifts to actually get up and over there, thus the crowds are greatly diminished.  The views from the top are truly breath taking (quite possibly because it means you are standing at an elevation on above 11,059 feet and you are delirious from lack of oxygen and too much ride-able terrain).

My friend Terry, who lived and skied in Italy for three years, said it reminded him of the Alps.  Picture long, ever connecting mountains with jagged, minaret like peaks.  Of course, covered in bright white snow.  If you can imagine that, you’ve got the eastern Sierras on lock down.

Once on the backside there is a big wide-open bowl that leads directly to the lift.  If you stay high and right you end up in perfectly spaced trees.  It’s like they planted them just for our riding benefit, not too close together and not too far apart.  On top of that, if you get tired of the trees you can fairly easy get out of them on to more wide up corduroy. No getting stuck in steep endless valleys and slots on this backside.

Moral of the story: if you only have one day to ride Mammoth hit up the backside first!  That and take weekend trips. I’m a firm believer in finding your way in pushing the boundaries and shaking things up!