Brought to you by Mammoth Mountain

Report from May 10, 2021

I awoke at 5:00 am today in Park City, UT.

I pounded a glass of water, threw a couple of bags in the car, and hit the road in a light snowstorm.

In Salt Lake City, it was driving rain.

I finished Hemmingway’s “A Moveable Feast” in the first hour of the drive.

Not his best book, but very interesting to learn what a mess F. Scott Fitzgerald was in Paris in the 1920s.

“A Moveable Feast” ends with Hemmingway and friends backcountry skiing all over Austria with seal skins on the bottom of their skis, staying in high mountain huts, and learning about avalanches.

A lot of people died in avalanches that year in Austria.

The final line of that book hit me hard:  “But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.” – where “Paris” is wherever your happy place is.

One of my happy places is Mammoth Lakes, California, in May, and I was ripping directly across the desert towards it at 88mph.

I arrived at 1:30 pm, threw my gear on, and was on the legendary Chair 23 by 1:52 pm.

After an awesome top to bottom lap, I met up with the boys at Chair 23, and we skied great off-piste corn for lap after lap.

I was surprised how much skiing we got in only 1 hour.

We ripped from top to bottom on our last run, and the snow was perfect the entire way, even at 2:05 pm.

No stickiness anywhere.

I was hungry…  I zipped home and broke my 24-hour fast, thought of how Hemmingway would have viewed this day, and it all felt great.

I’m so fired up to be in Mammoth, my May happy place for the rest of the month.

Mammoth is open from 7:30 am to 2 pm for the rest of the season.

Snow Numbers:

Forecast:

Photos: