Week #12 - Thanksgiving

Hmmm, what to be thankful for this week?

• For starters, a '96-hour liberty' before departing for the Middle East.
• Then having that extended by a day to make up for all the holidays we worked this fall.
• My Mom coming out for Thanksgiving.
• My cousin Alison and husband Kevin hosting her in addition to my aunt and uncle at their new place.
• But most importantly, being able to spend Thanksgiving and a mini-ski vacation with my beautiful wife.

After Thanksgiving in Los Angeles, we hit the road to Mammoth, my old stomping ground in the Eastern Sierra and where I started my full-time ski bum, I mean ski career! CA 14 to US 395, and four-and-a-half hours later we were 'in the snow.'

Saturday I got an early start and did a half-dozen laps with my old ski school friend Edie. She's old enough to be a grandmother but that doesn't stop her from ripping it up. Once or twice I looked up to realize I was about to lose her. The top was open, and we hit up Cornice for a very steep groomer and not so-subtle reminder why skiing at Mammoth is so much fun!

Edie was actually done skiing before Katie was ready. That's more a testament to Edie's 'beat the crowds' mentality that Katie's need to run for an hour every morning, rain or shine or going skiing for eight hours that day. But that's OK, the rest of the crowd was just coming out and we still had six-and-a-half hours of skiing available.

Yep, still a Babe :)

Realizing we hadn't enjoyed our first coffee of the day, we stopped mid-morning at The Mill to get caffeinated. After a few more runs, and hoping to have missed the lunch crowd, we had some food at the Mid Station (the actual name escapes me now).

I showed Katie everything that was open, from Roller Coaster (Chair 4) in the West to Chair 12 in the East. The lower man-made snow wasn't so good, so we tried to stay up high after that. The best run of the day had to be Huevos off the top. Three telemark skiers that followed us around Top of the World inspired us as they proceeded to charge our line we had planned.

View from Stump Alley Express (Chair 2). Mammoth Mountain Inn is at the bottom.

With the sun behind the mountain and our legs reminding us we hadn't done this in eight months, we were done around 3pm. I was looking forward to a long session in the hot tub, and Katie had a manicure scheduled. OK, I scheduled the manicure FOR Katie. So while I was at the hot tub enjoying a can of Coors Light compliments of some new friends, Katie got her appointment changed to an hour-long massage. I think we're starting to like this ski vacation thing!

Out of a fear that we wouldn't have the legs, nor the lungs, for two days of skiing between 8000 and 11,053 feet, we had only brought our alpine touring (AT) skis and boots. After a full day of skiing with our heels locked down, and our respective hot tub soak and full-body massage, we felt good enough to rent telemark rigs for the second day. So off we headed to Mammoth Mountaineering Supply down in town before feasting on sushi at Shogun.

Terminator X Pro - yes this is a nice boot

I got to try the Scarpa Terminator X Pro with the Rottefella NTN binding, all on top of the new K2 World Piste. This is the same ski I have back home, just new graphics, so it was a good way to feel the difference in the boot and binding. Very fun ride! More powerful than my Garmont boots, much more control edge-to-edge.

Garmont Elektra for Katie

They didn't have an NTN set-up in Katie's size, but she tried her first four-buckle boot, the Garmont Elektra, and a wider and stiffer ski than she's used to. She also enjoyed the new-found power of the bigger boot, and liked the skis over her current ones.

Katie on Solitude off Chair 5, Lincoln Peak and Chair 22 (not open yet) in the background

After another full day on the slopes, we had the six-hour drive back to San Diego to look forward to. With a mind on beating the inevitable traffic coming down the mountain, I delayed as long as possible by taking Katie a couple miles off 395 to see Hot Creek, a natural wonder and evidence of Mammoth's volcanic activity.