I guess it is left to me to review our recent ski trip to Mammoth. Having asked each of my children to share a paragraph of their thoughts or memories of the trip and having received no responses I can only hope they enjoyed the trip. They seemed to.
We tried something a little new this year. For quite some time it has been our practice to spend Christmas in Southern California and leave the day after Christmas for a week in Salt Lake City visiting family and skiing. Our children have now reached the point of not really having two weeks of vacation at Christmastime so we have decided to spend the season in California, where they grew up. The last few years some of us (primarily Kelsey and me) have started a bit of a tradition spending a day or two in Mammoth immediately prior to Christmas. The snow has been good and the crowds minimal. It seems to be the case that most people travel to Mammoth immediately after Christmas thereby leaving the pre-Christmas crowd quite manageable. This year we expanded the trip to include everyone and we stayed for two or three days. You ask, two or three days? Doesn’t he know? Well, yes. We all drove up Sunday evening and Colette, Sean and Amy came home Tuesday evening. Colette came home to get everything ready for Christmas Eve. Sean came home because he needed to work on Christmas Eve. Amy came home because she needed to get back to warmer weather. The rest of us, Eric, Garth, Kelsey and I came home after skiing through mid-day on Christmas Eve. We would have stayed longer, or at least I would have, but we would have missed out on Christmas Eve dinner. None of us was willing to do that.
We arrived Sunday evening in a budding snowstorm. The day had apparently been fairly warm in Mammoth so the snow on the road had melted and refrozen. What that meant was that there was a nice layer of ice on all the roads. Cars were slipping and sliding all over the place. Our initial attempt to get to our condominium was foiled by an accident (not involving us, fortunately) that forced us to turn around and take a different route. Fortunately, both the Tahoe and the RAV4 handled the ice and snow with aplomb and we arrived in good order. Unfortunately, there was no one at the condo complex to let us in. We needed to drive back into town to the rental center where we did locate a key. Safely back at the condo Colette whipped up a wonderful batch of spaghetti and garlic bread that left us all deeply contented as we watched the snow out the window (or as the kids played Guitar Hero).
Monday dawned stormy at best. The wind was howling and the snow was flying. The clouds were low on the mountain. This was Garth’s introduction to Mammoth and to skiing. Frankly it was not the best day for a first timer on skis but it was all we had and the forecast looked no better. We got lift tickets for everyone, signed Garth up for ski school and then dropped him off and said goodbye for the day. We weren’t excited about not seeing Garth all day but it seemed the best thing to do. I suspect he will have memories of that first day that may differ a bit from the rest of ours. The question is, will he ever come clean with his real thoughts? ;)
I can’t speak for Garth but the rest of us had a fun day (at least I did and everyone else professed to) even if it was REAL FROSTY. The upper mountain was closed but we did ski all the way over to the Main Lodge and back. The snow was good but the visibility was challenging. At the end of the day we met Garth and took a couple of runs with him before calling it a day. I was quite pleased with the progress he seemed to have made. For the next two days he followed us over much of the mountain. He certainly did much better than I did on my second and third day on skis.
Monday night we all dined at The Mogul, my favorite restaurant in Mammoth. I think everyone enjoyed it. Certainly the tab for the evening indicated everyone must have had a good time. By the way, I should note here that one in our party did no skiing while we were in Mammoth. Amy elected to work on her dissertation proposal and hung out in the condo both days she was there. This actually worked out well because she was still around to socialize with us, she was able to stay warm (a big priority for her) and she acted as our shuttle bus driver between the condo and the ski lodge (even if the lodge was only a couple of blocks away it was nice to have a lift when we were wearing ski boots).
Tuesday was another stormy day as was Wednesday. That said, need I remind anyone that skiing is a winter sport? The snow was great and we had our “White Christmas”. Garth did great for his first time out. Amy had a good time. The boys got to ski the kind of terrain they like (steep and deep) and for the most part the rest of us did to.
Tuesday night it was just Eric, Garth, Kelsey and me for dinner so we did another old favorite of ours, Gomez Mexican Food. We arrived early enough that we got my favorite booth (back in the corner well away from the door). I think eating there brought back a few memories for Eric and Kelsey. I know it did for me.
I certainly had a wonderful trip and look forward to doing it again. Perhaps part of our evolving holiday tradition? The most important thing was that we were together as a family at a very special time of the year. As our family grows and situations change we may not always be able to all be present but we will always have our memories.
Note: the snow report indicated 61” fell while we were in Mammoth. It didn’t seem like quite that much but the powder “off piste” was certainly waist deep or more just ask Sean. Temperatures were in the mid-teens most of the time (the hot chocolate sure tasted good).