Careful, this is a long one!!!

Last weekend, me, Dave, Cathy, Vinnie, Dean and Brooks drove out to Mammoth Mountain, which is a little less than 5 hours away from LA. I had gone snowboarding the week before to learn at Mountain High, so I didn't waste any time at Mammoth learning. Of course, snowboarding looks a LOT easier than it actually is, unless you've skateboarded before. And unfortunately for me, 1000 hours playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater doesn't count.

We packed up two cars, one with groceries and luggage, and my little CRV with the guy's snowboards. Of the six of us, Cathy and Brooks were the only ones who haven't snowboarded before, I had one day of experience and Dave had two. We left early in the morning, and as we got closer to Mammoth Lakes, the view got more and more breathtaking. It's incredible to see the beautiful snow covered mountains so close to LA.

We got to our destination at about 4pm, and we settled into our little condo. Our place was only about 2 blocks away from the mountain lifts, so we had a great location. Our place was on the second floor, but was actually up two flights of stairs, and let me tell you, climbing up the flight of stairs at 9,000 feet above sea level just about killed me. I was winded when I got to the top and I had to take a break. It didn't bode well for the rest of the trip. How was I going to snowboard if I couldn't even make it up the stairs?

After putting our stuff in our mini-cabin, we headed out to rent skis/snowboards. Dave wanted to maximize his time at Mammoth, so he planned on snowboarding the second day (the guys brought an extra snowboard for him) and ski the first day, so he could explore the mountain. Dave's been skiing since he was in 6th grade, so he's pretty good at it. He didn't want to spend the whole weekend putzing around on the lower slopes on a snowboard when he could explore the whole mountain the first day on skis, then putz around the second day.

We went to the rental shop that had the cheapest deal on rentals and got our gear. The rental board boots STANKED to high heaven. (If stanked is even a word.) Brooks had to actually turn away a pair because it smelled so foul. Me and Cathy both got clicker boards, where the board clicks to your boots, rather than what is popular now - the strap-in boot. Clickers are just easier for me to put on. I know that eventually I'll have to give in and get the strap-ins, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. We got our stuff together, piled it into the car and went back to our place.

Since our condo wasn't furnished with a rice cooker, we had to figure out how to do it the old fashioned way, at a higher altitude. It seems like Cathy has about the same level of cooking expertise as I do, so we were a little apprehensive. We found some small pots and pans and tried cooking some rice, but at the altitude we were at the water boiled away quickly and our rice ended up soft on the outside, kinda crunchy in the middle. But food is food, and no one complained. But a note to all of you high altitude people out there who plan on cooking rice - you need more water!!!

The next day we headed out to the mountain, which was HUGE. I've been skiing before, and this mountain was easily four times as big as any mountain I've skied on. During the whole weekend there, I only went about a tenth of the mountain. Since Dave was skiing the first day, he traveled off on his own, which was fine with me because when we ski/snowboard together we just hold each other back. We actually have more fun going off on our own, then meeting later and sharing our experiences.

The rest of us spent the first day on the bunny hill, which was actually much bigger than any bunny hill I've seen. It's about 5 times longer than the bunny hill I learned to ski on in Wisconsin. Rather than a tow rope to go up, you have to take an actual lift, and the lift takes about 5 minutes to get to the top. We got up there, and then the more experienced boarders took a newbie to help down the hill. Vinnie got Brooks, their cousin Mikkel got Cathy and I had Dean. The first time the mountain, I fell about 50 times. Three quarters of that was me just trying to get up from my board. Dean was trying to teach me the right way to get up, and I was trying to do everything he was doing, but after a few dozen falls, he said, 'Just grab the top of your board for balance' and when I told him I couldn't, we both realized that old, creaky me isn't limber enough to get up the normal way. So I figured out my own way to get up and after that, things ended up being a lot easier.

After lunch at Mikkel's house that he was staying at, we went back for a couple more runs. I was definitely getting better - able to control my speed, brake when necessary and maneuver around fallen boarders. But I wasn't doing the proper weaving motion - sking down, then doing a heel turn, facing down and doing a toe turn. I was basically on my heels the whole time. My body refused to turn facing the mountain.

That night we were so exhausted, we just popped in a movie, played some Texas Hold'em and ate some hot wings.

The next day we woke up sore. I checked out my bruise from the week before and it was worse, since I fell on it a couple times the day before. Fortunately, I had no new injuries. The second day of boarding was similar to the first, though I did venture out to the harder slopes. But I was a bit intimidated by the fact that I saw so few people falling on their asses. People on the blue slopes knew what they were doing. So I decided to head back to the easy slope to perfect my technique. I did run into a problem when I discovered that I had a blister on my ankle from my cheap snowboard boots. It made it really painful to walk. But once I put a bandaid on it, I was good to go. I tried to spend the rest of the day trying to turn on my toes, and near the end of the day and after many falls on my right ass cheek (which some call a 'splitter', different from the 'shitter', thank you Jamie) I finally figured out the balance needed to turn on my front edge without falling over. However, I was unable to turn back on my heel. I would end up turning on my toe, then doing a complete 360 back to the beginning. Not the proper technique, but it looked pretty cool.

Dave was supposed to meet me at the lift, but he wasn't there, and me and Cathy waited for a bit and then started heading back towards the lodge. I looked up the hill and noticed a figure walking down, holding his board. It turns out that during his last run, Dave noticed that he was unable to turn his board, and looked down and noticed that his bindings were loose. So he just walked down the rest of the mountain, poor thing. Then as we were walking towards the lodge, his bindings just completely fell off. Luckily they fell off when he wasn't on the mountain!

After our last day of boarding, Mikkel invited us over to his house for dinner. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some pie, and the cashier asked Dean if he was Wilmer Valderama from 'That 70's Show'. When he said no, I don't think she believed him. Since his hair has grown out, he REALLY looks like him, and I guess people ask him all the time. When we got to the house and got out of the car, it was unbelievable how clear the night was, and how bright the stars were. They looked so close and so bright we felt like we could reach out and touch them. It was definitely breathtaking. I could have stared at the stars all night if it wasn't so cold! Mikkel's whole family was staying at the house, and they had a lot of food. We ate really well there - pork chops, shrimp, sinigang, salmon - it was like going to a Filipino party. Afterwards, we went into the outdoor hot tub. That was challenging in itself because it was about 10 degrees outside and it was about 15 feet from the door to to hot tub. But once we were in it was SO nice! We hung out there for a while talking and joking around, and no one wanted to be the first one out. It was so cold that if we dipped our hair in the water, it would freeze on our heads since we had our heads above water. Finally, we decided we had to get out, and Mikkel was the first to jump out, run inside, dry off, throw on a winter jacket and come out, ready to hand each one of us our towels as we jumped out of the tub and sprinted inside. It was so cold during that 15 feet of space between the tub and the house that when we got in we were almost hypervenilating from the shock of the cold. I'm sure if someone was watching us it would have been a sight to see, people running around soaking wet in bathing suits in 10 degree weather.

Once we got back, me and Dave pretty much passed out. Once we got up in the morning, we packed up our stuff, took some pictures and checked out. We drove around to the scenic places around Mammoth, but couldn't take a gondola to the top of the mountain because it was $17 a person. But we did get some nice shots on our way home.

All in all, it was an awesome trip. We had a great time, great laughs, great snowboarding. I'm not an expert yet, but I can get down the mountain without falling. Cathy picked it up pretty quickly, and we're at about the same level right now. Brooks did alright, but since he was so tall, he was having problems with his board a lot. He was just happy that he saw another black family at the mountain. There weren't too many people of color out there! I managed to get through the weekend without breaking anything, though my wrists are really sore from falling on them, and my right butt cheek has a bruise. Unfortunately, you're not going to see it. But you CAN see some of my pictures here. Here's a sampling of my favorites:

Posted by Yano at January 26, 2004 06:19 PM

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