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June 12, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA Only two more days left of the lift-served ski season here. It has been nice and cool this month and we even got some snow on June 5 (and a few more inches on the upper mountain overnight a couple of times since then). Conditions have been good in the halfpipe and for doing lines off the top from Chair 23. Here is a photo from June 5 up on the mountain.

May 24, 2009 Mammoth's season is supposed to go until mid-June...Here are some late season thoughts...
Riding a soft board (or my relative idea of one) really hasn't been working out for me. Back riding a T6 and will probably keep riding stiffer boards from here on out. May up-size to a 159.
I don't have a pass purchased for next season. I have no money. It comes down to 3 main choices: 1)Return to Jackson Hole, 2) Squaw/Reno/Tahoe, 3) Leaving the country doing a season in France or Switzerland. Or I could go surf somewhere...I think I prefer Ventura and up that way over the OC, haven't tried it in San Diego County spots yet. I actually liked Oregon a lot because it wasn't crowded. But I like the mountains and snowboarding enough to stay in the mountains.
Snowboarding contests are not satisfying to me, tremendous waste of time and energy, too many mean catty people, and judging criteria so far removed from anything that actually matters. There is just so much about snowboarding that has been disappointing lately, the cultural construct and social parts...not the activity itself or my personal experience. The prolonged struggle to survive that has been this winter has really let me set aside the bullshit and get beyond limited perspectives, some antiquated status quo and other people's ideas about what is good and right. Emptiness/vapidness is exposed for what it is. A renewed and more authentic system of aesthetic values rises from the ashes of what was never quite real enough. Snowboarding is starving for newness and critical discourse.
There are mountaineer people who take time out from their Himalaya climbing expeditions to build schools for girls in Afghanistan. That is really special and good.
As much as a retreat into the academic world might fix my own hunger for critical discourse, I don't think I would be fulfilled without having this focus on being actively engaged with nature and a creative life. There is no satisfaction in crafting a clever research paper. But there is something to doing more, wider and profound things to do good in the world. I am doing more good things in my life. The "oh I want to be a better snowboarder" thing is not there like it was, but the loss of that attachment is the turning point, as I just don't care what other people think and that has made my experience whole, and now it gets magical and new again, zen mind beginner's mind and so much more fun and real.

April 14, 2009 June Mountain Closing Weekend. The view down into the valley while riding the first chair up in the morning is one of my favorite views in the world. The halfpipe was cut for closing day and though small by current standards, it has qualities that make it more fun to ride than most pipes I've been in the past few years. I heard so many people exclaim after riding it "This is the best halfpipe I have ever ridden"..June makes snowboarding everything I want it to be and more. This is the snowboarding I fell in love with and that makes me want to push things to new levels.

April 4, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA So there was another nice snowstorm after I got back from my SoCal trip and that made for some very nice freeriding before the Roxy Chicken Jam. Chair 23/Drop Outs and Upper Dry Creek were the best areas for me. I was not incredibly enthusiastic about competing at the Roxy Chicken Jam -- it was not that I didn't want to jump off of new cheese wedges and do tricks or ride in a new halfpipe that was clearly inferior to the 22 ft. super duper pipe I'd been riding in all month. I just really felt out of place and repulsed by the immaturity, mean attitudes and narrow worldviews of a lot of the people I encountered. With few exceptions, I have found that I want nothing to do with this whole women's snowboarding "business". It seems like there is no room for creativity and it feels like things are contracting instead of expanding and progressing. I haven't been up again since last Saturday when Phamu was in the mascot competition because I have been really sick, but I can't help but think I succumbed to being sick because I am "sick of" so much crap that has paraded before my senses over the past few years of watching so much of what I love about snowboarding marching straight to hell.
It is looking like I may switch things up in the near future and focus more on water and surfing and less on snowboarding for a little while and bust out a graduate degree and do some other creative projects.

March 18, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA Back from LA/Orange County/SoCal...I drove down there Monday and came back last night. I had to go down and buy stuff to sell in one of my internet stores and I went surfing at Huntington Beach south of the pier for a little while on Tuesday morning. The waves were pretty good, the last bit of what was apparently quite the south swell over the weekend, it was mixed with some WNW swell on Tuesday, I saw some people getting little barrels, I caught a couple waves, I need to get a lighter wetsuit, I think a 3/2 would be fine, the 5 mill suit I have for Oregon weighs a ton and I am over it. There was a lot of shark activity leading up to when I was there, I wasn't really that concerned about it. They live there in the ocean, they eat stuff, it is fascinating, they are either going to eat you or they aren't going to eat you. I just realized that since I didn't go to the US Open of snowboarding I ended up going to where they have the US Open of Surfing. I was all over the greater LA/OC/SFValley area, here are some pictures: Santa Monica pier/beach Monday night right before sunset, Huntington Beach parking lot and footbridge, HB Pier and Lifeguard Shack, HB Surfer and waves, stuck in traffic in Hollywood Tuesday afternoon.

March 10, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA Back on the snow for a sunny day in Mammoth. It feels like spring here. Yesterday we had extreme high winds (140 mph gusts at the top of chair 1), things are pretty scoured but with sun in the forecast for the next few days if not the next couple of weeks, the parks should be fun and at their peak. I had to bite the bullet and cancel my US Open trip yesterday, that sucked immensely but there wasn't anything more I could do. I think I am going to ride hard for about a week and then take off and go surf for a couple of days and then come back and ride for a week until the Chicken Jam. Phamu is considering entering the mascot halfpipe competition but he thinks the judging will be too political ("Same old Sea World BS...I'm over it"...) and he told me he won't enter unless there are free adult beverages involved. And he only drinks Red Bull and doesn't like whatever kind of energy drink they have at the Chicken Jam that isn't Red Bull. I am kind of worried about him perhaps getting intoxicated and violating the other mascots in some way. He is a really difficult Orca, total prima donna.

March 6, 2009 South Lake Tahoe, CA Today was another challenging one for me at the North Face Masters in Kirkwood from a competition perspective...I wanted to go for some freestyle something off of something but I didn't thus rendering my line choice pretty useless otherwise. I felt like one of those people on the cake competition shows on the Food channel who build a whole big cake that is really just a pedestal for some giant spun sugar sculptures but the cake structure is not right and the whole thing collapses. More to it than that of course..like no suitable freeride board and 28 other days of the month I would have done a better line and it is infuriating that my competition days always line up with those days when nothing computes. One redeeming thing is that the finals aren't being held on the full, real cirque, just a lower side section that is mostly normal open terrain. So it is like a circus with a pissed off poodle instead of a tiger. I had a couple of majestic giant natural halfpipe runs at the end of the day that were almost worth the price of admission. On to the next thing.
...Which it is looking like might not be the US Open. I am more or less landing everything on jumps that I want to land and keeping that little progression game going, I want to keep it going and not put it on hold. And I just don't have enough money. This economy is tricky and I probably can't take 10 days off from producing income and expect to pay my rent and bills at the end of the month. It is devastating but in the context of the ongoing struggle it is just more of the same. I am the living embodiment of hunger.

February 25, 2009 Went to Kirkwood today...I had a great time, the terrain there is really fun. Massive natural halfpipes and enticing rock features. The Cirque looks way crazier in person with flat light, snow and wind than in sunny day photos. I just wanted to go to Kirkwood and have some fun runs and make sure I really want to do the big mountain competing thing again. I saw some stuff on the NFM site and they seem to have evolved the judging criteria substantially from last year. And I really want to get back up there so I can work out the lines on those huge natural halfpipes. (Photos: Kirkwood terrain accessed from The Wall Lift; Cirque closure sign; Cirque terrain)

February 23, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA In the midst of a wet snowstorm...another storm came in yesterday. I damaged my leg jumping on Thursday (I won't even dare to describe what I did) and I really wanted to ride in the Nikita Slopestyle event that was held here Saturday but it just wasn't happening for me, I was feeling too raw and beat-up to ride how I wanted to ride so I didn't compete. The relatively soggy snow gives me a reason to chill out for a couple of days. My vision of a busy and productive competition season hasn't really played out the way I wanted it to, and trying to make things happen in the parks here has been frustrating, things just aren't how they were in 2004 and 2005 -- then add the weather to the mix and good jumping and pipe and learning days are few. The jump line in the little video on the Jackson Hole site looks really good right now. I have had a lot of fun riding off of Chairs 16 and 22 on the snowy days, don't think it is enough to really feel prepared for the "extreme" competition but it is at least something. I miss having lots of fun natural terrain easily accessible, steepness etc.

February 12, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA Storms are lining up, it is looking good for some snow or a snowstorm every day or two for the next week or longer...the snow quality right now is near perfect, super cold, super dry...just enough wind to stir up surface conditions to keep things fun and fill in some tracks. I've been riding my uninc 156 (which is usually my park/pipe board lately) and my T6 156...my custom x would be my first choice right now for doing the freeriding/powder/natural terrain stuff but I think it is just too far gone in the edge/base department...a need a new board of some kind if I plan to do the North Face Masters at Kirkwood as I really don't want to do it with the T6 (too hyperactive on mixed, icy and sketchy conditions)...but alas there is no money for a board right now. And I don't even know for sure what I want if I do get something. I may have to pick the Open over the NFM as I may only have the money to do one or the other and I feel the Open is more critical for me right now though I think the NFM will be fun and all. And yes, I got into the US Open qualifiers for both pipe and slopestyle. The jumping is coming along, I am improving with the jibbing but it is not my best, most favorite thing and I am going to just focus on going huge in the pipe, grabbing everything and and keeping it fun. I am really super happy about the Open, I really had a good time there last time I went in 2006. My new contest motto is "I only attend non-Kafkaesque snowboarding competitions." With all of the snow in the forecast my practice plans for the Nikita slopestyle on the 21st may not come to pass but at least we are getting snow which will help out the mountain, its employees, and the local economy in these difficult times (and fresh snow is fun).

February 4, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA I've had a couple of strong sort of park riding days since the weekend and new snow is supposed to come tonight through Saturday. I was playing around with the idea of driving over to Park City for the Burton Am tour Friday but it is looking like I am going to just sit tight here and ride in the snowstorm. And it is really hard for me to drive all that way and not go up to Jackson and ride for at least a day or two, I am busting a gut for some of that terrain...and it is just not so feasible from a money standpoint to go on a road trip at this time. So instead of competing every weekend, I am kind of digging in to the essentials of riding and going after what I want to improve on and learn and what things are most fun that I can push myself with onto bigger jumps etc ...I am still looking solid for the Mammoth Nikita thing, the Kirkwood NFM likely and the Roxy Chicken Jam and maybe the US Open if I get qualifier spots and can scrounge up the cash for a hotel and rental car or find a free/cheap place to stay (the flying there part is easy)...I just didn't have enough time between Switzerland and the Canadian Open to make money to live on and pay my rent/bills, so that is kind of what did that trip in...not to mention not making near what I expected to make during the holiday retail season. I emailed them (the Canadian open people) 9 days in advance that I wasn't going to be able to attend but they called me on registration day asking if I was there and I felt so bad all over again. But I am staying focused on what is most important. I am really happy just to be able to go out and ride everyday and do what I can with what is out there.

January 31, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA So I should be competing in the USASA pipe comp that is going on right now up at main lodge. I have been absolutely killing it in the pipe the past few days and I was in a really good space to go and win it today. Due to the technicality of their new unpublished, unannounced registration time being different from the announced, published registration time, I was not allowed to compete today. But pretty much what is going on is I am being blacklisted/blackballed. There is some bad juju going on in Mammoth and it is not "just me". This goes way back and the gist is that some people don't want me to succeed in snowboarding. Well, I am confident now and I am feeling really good about being able to drop in high to the 22 footer at mach speed without speedchecking. I am really supportive of my fellow snowboarders and I came here this season with an openhearted attitude. I am confident in so many ways and I feel really good about my life and I love snowboarding and what I am doing snowboarding right now.

January 29, 2009 Switzerland Trip Recap The nexus of this trip came about before the full economic fallout, when I was planning my winter late last summer. I knew I had a ton of Delta miles and I wanted to use some of them, and since they aren't easy to use for a trip to New Zealand or Australia I figured I would just go to Europe so I could finally ride the Alps in the winter, which was one of my many goals for this season. And since I have been wanting to get back into the competition swing of things, I figured I would register for the lottery for the Burton European Open qualifiers...and lo and behold I got in...and so this trip was planned. And this trip indeed satiated a bit of wanderlust I have had since I haven't been on a big trip since New Zealand in August of 07. So I figured why not. But in the time that elapsed from the time I was planning this trip until it was time to leave, things got increasingly stressful and tight for me from a money standpoint. My online retail business had a really slow holiday season and my regular retail job is nowhere near enough to cover my basic living expenses, let alone expensive snowboard travel. It really came down to the final few days before I left in terms of knowing if I was going to be able to pull this trip off -- ultimately as I had to prepay the lodging and the ticket was going to be hard to get refunded (I'd lose my miles I paid with) it was easier to just go and have a good time and try to transcend the worries back home. (It is not so much the cost of travel as the lost income I need to make during the time spent traveling that makes snowboard trips so challenging right now).
   I will skip over the LAX to LAAX part of the trip as I have already commented about that segment. And really, I don't have much at all to say about the competition segment of the trip. I am in a space of brutal self-honesty and I can honestly say that I was just not as prepared as I needed to be in terms of practice and in terms of the level I really feel like I want to be riding at in order to contend at such high level events. I don't have issues with how the contest was run or anything like that, I am not going to place blame on anyone or anything or whatever "bitch-assness" (a la the Making the Band with Diddy). Mammoth had a slow snow season getting going this year, I needed that pipe time and small/medium jump time before this comp but conditions and circumstances didn't come together, so I just wasn't ready [but now that I have that stuff I can engage and progress]. So, whatever. But I do think what I think about what directions I want to see women's riding go and I want to be a part of those directions. I was happy to cheer for the women I wanted to see win and do well. [ I know I often engage in a lot of "bitch-assness", especially in the wake of my attempts to compete, but it really is just me wanting to have a niche where I can flourish, the ability and means for self-improvement and to be able to participate in snowboarding in a truly creative and artistic way. It is not weakness but more like idealism and perfectionism.] I watched most of the slope finals, I missed most of the pipe semis as I had the schedule not right in my head, and I watched the second half of the pipe finals (I was off doing the grand "Top of Vorab to Alp Ruschein run" which didn't open until late morning and I wanted to do it before I left).
   On Tuesday I did this really gnarly run (they call them "freeride routes") from the top of the Cassons cable car on the ridge overhanging Flims Dorf....There was a very short hike up a sketchy, icy bootpack that hung over a 3000 foot vertical drop off (it is 3028 feet to be exact, from Naraus to Cassons)...then along the ridge, down some icy mogul fields (which are fun to me, because I learned how fun they are by watching other people do mogul runs a long, long time ago at Mammoth)...then along some sketchy heel edge traverses and through some crazy "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" sections that involved some near vertical uphill riding over and through some of the tight bulbous roller formations that are characteristic of much Laax/Flims terrain. Losing ground or slipping out on the traverses or the subsequent sections would have meant tumbling into a deep snow-filled ravine that would have involved an awesomely difficult boot pack to put in for oneself or in some cases maybe even some kind of a heli rescue. Clearly in better snow conditions this area was a favorite powder zone (per the local Laax skier who accompanied me on this run and obvious looking at the wide open area of 3000+ vertical that was closed due to lack of snow). It was pretty hairy on the traverses and it was marvelous to be out of the range of the competition and all worldly concerns and at least for a short time in the realm of the natural Alps beyond-piste. And in spite of the lack of new snow, I was mesmerized by the terrain and what lies beyond the resorts. Seeing incredible natural lines in their winter, snow-covered splendor and pondering what is possible, where the limits are and where the limits cease to exist.
   I rode hard everyday before during and after my competition days...I was all over the place. I was so tired every night, though I tried to go out to a couple of the parties I would be ready to go too early then come back to my apartment to wait until later and end up falling asleep watching MTV Deutschland and CNN. My apartment came with access to a nice Hallenbad (aka indoor pool) so I did that a few times. I was and am pretty short on cash so I didn't eat out but for a few coffees and literally only two beers. I ended up eating a lot of produce, cheese, yogurt, smoked salmon and bread from the grocery store. My apartment was very nice, it felt like home while I was there. It was decorated kind of ranch/western with horse paintings and pictures and it had cute little kitten coffee mugs.
   My days in Laax went by really fast. Friday January 16 was my last Laax riding day and Saturday I was supposed to check out of my apartment there. Though I wanted more time to ride in the Alps, there was a storm moving in that was going to make for some low visibility and mixed snow conditions before it made for good powder riding. I was ready to move on from where I was but it was a weekend and I didn't want to charge a hotel room in a ski area (what was left to book in my chosen destinations was fairly expensive), and spend the greater part of Saturday riding trains, if I wasn't going to get some good riding out of it Sunday and/or Monday. I made the decision to move my stuff to a hotel in Zurich and if conditions permitted I was going to go to Engleberg/Titlis via train Sunday or Monday if there was good snow (as my flight out was Tuesday morning). I guess I could have made the longer haul all the way to Saas-Fee or Zermatt where I know the area better and could have done low elevation or tree stuff if the weather was bad. A skier from Kentucky on my flight back got stuck way up in Engleberg on Monday and had to ride down inside a snowcat and said it was a total "blizzard". Really nice guy, we waited for our oversized bags together for awhile in customs/baggage area at the Atlanta airport. I guess it would have been okay snow higher up but not good days for exploring new mountains.
   So I ended up in Zurich for a couple days. I shopped but didn't buy much (some Haribo, some chocolate, some chocolate with absinthe in it). I ate pastries and drank espresso. I went to the Kunsthaus Zurich (the main art museum) and saw paintings I wrote papers about in my AP Art History class at Pine View (my high school in Florida). I visited the Cabaret Voltaire, the original home of the Dada art movement (one of my favorite art movements). I went to the Museum fur Gestaltung (Design Museum) and saw a show about political poster art and images of politicians. There was a room devoted to Arnold Schwarzenegger and it was fun watching the Swiss laugh at his speeches on a video. On Monday I went to the Zoo and saw some King Penguins really up close and personal, some tigers and lions, some harbour seals and many other animals. Then I went to the Spielzeug Museum (toy museum) and saw a magnificent exhibit of Steiff Plush Animals. And at night I managed to get some work done in my hotel room on the internet so I would have some money to pay bills when I got home.
   It was a nice flight back, I slept a bit as I had a full, middle 3-seat row to myself. I got to watch some of the Obama inauguration parade in the Atlanta airport and on the flight back to LA, it was a joyous day to come home. I spent the night in a hotel in the outskirts of the LA area and got some buying done for my business before driving back to Mammoth wednesday night. LA felt really warm and I thought I would go the beach but I ended up just wanting to be back in the mountains and snow...I really wasn't into it. I think the weather and traffic and vegetation seemed too much like my home area in Florida. I have really wondered where my home is and where my home should be in the past couple of years...do I want to be in the mountains or closer to the ocean...right now I really feel connected in the mountains, in snowy, colder places. I enjoy driving around the Great American West and searching for answers.
Laax/BEO Photo Gallery
(Zurich Photo Gallery will be added here soon.)

January 25, 2009 Mammoth Lakes, CA I am going to post some kind of recap with "Switzerland Photo Spectacular" when I get some actual free time to work on it, hopefully soon. For now I can say that I am really glad to be home. I flew back all day Tuesday and drove back from LA Wednesday afternoon.
I have come to the profound realization that all of this flurry of activity going to competitions and traveling and such is not presently in the best interest of what I really want to do in snowboarding. I am pulling out of the Canadian Open and canceling my ticket and reservations. The difficulty of my financial situation has also helped me to distill my passion into its most specific, essential manifestations. I am still going to do some of the local circuit and a few other things this season if time and money and circumstances allow. But the most crucial, real, fun and true thing right now for me is progression. I want to ride and have a chance to try new things. I want to do new things, push myself, ride harder, learn new tricks, try new tricks and so forth. It is so frustrating for me to put all of my energy into something and be relegated to secondary status and to be, as it is for me now, even relegated to being nothing, the lowest of low creatures in the realm of what few things females actually get to do in snowboarding. I don't want to be sitting in a hotel room counting my points, I want to be here going out there in the park and pushing it. They finally built stuff, like the pipe and south park size jumps and I had to go away for Christmas then I got back it it was like as soon as i was back I took off for Europe. And it is like, "okay enough already....am I going to push the limits of snowboarding and my existence and have an intense, creative experience or am I going to ride in pipe contests and be miserable and flounder and suck at it and hate it and watch how people no-grab spin to get points..." Style is important, grabbing is important. Riding is important. And natural terrain is so important. The park is a tool, I am going to make great use of it now. The snow here in Mammoth today was amazing, and I had some intense, scary, beautiful natural terrain riding experiences in Switzerland too...it makes me realize that I love being in a great natural terrain environment where I can make up my own park from what is there. But I don't have a crew of people with like interests to ride with so I can't go ride the backcountry, which is really sad. I often feel really sad because I feel so left out of even the hope of the possibility of doing what I am capable of and want to do in snowboarding. So I am here now, I am going to do what I can with what I have, making the most I can of things, making something from nothing.

January 11, 2009 Laax, Switzerland The mountains here are amazing. Such good natural terrain, so much fun to ride here. I totally bailed on the slopestyle qualifiers today. I got up there to wait in line for practice (note: no practice or time on the course allowed for the ladies until approx. an hour and 15 minutes before the competition) and I just wasn't happy or having fun. Maybe I will ride the halfpipe qualifiers tomorrow, it would suck to come all this way and not compete at all, I guess. I've had maybe 3 or 4 good pipe days this season since the pipe was built so late at mammoth and am not presently landing back to back 5s or bigger so my likelihood of actually qualifying is pretty non-existent. I was landing some decent 5s last spring in Jackson and was spinning from the lip/above the lip this summer, just wish I'd had more time to practice before coming here. Right now my most fun pipe and transition trick is the japan air-to-fakie.

January 10, 2009 Laax, Switzerland "FROM LAX TO LAAX..." I am here in Laax for the qualifiers for the Burton European Open. It was a long trip -- I drove to LAX (Los Angeles Intl. Airport) from Mammoth Wednesday afternoon, hit the 405 during the latter part of rush hour. Stayed in LA Wednesday night, was up at 3am to take my car to long term parking, then I had a flight out of LAX at 6:25. Flew to Atlanta, then caught my flight from there to Zurich. Flew overnight arriving in Zurich at about 7am CET, took the train to the main Zurich station then another train to Chur then a bus to Laax. I spent the night last night at The Rider's Palace in a shared room (it is a really nice "Design" Hotel with modern concrete and glass construction) and plan to move into a holiday apartment this afternoon. Got a solid 12 hours of sleep last night and am feeling a lot better than yesterday. Today is a practice day for me, though the pipe and slopestyle course are going to be taken up with other competiitons so my "practice" will likely be riding around exploring the mountains here. I am ready for some freeriding, a lot of my recent days have been in and around Mammoth Main Park, Forest Trail Park and the Pipe. Slopestyle qualifiers are tomorrow, pipe Monday.

December 19, 2008 Mammoth Lakes, CA Vicious Wind. It sounds like a hurricane outside my condo as sit here watching most of the lifts go on "weather hold" on the lift status report online. Yesterday had clearer skies, except for when a massive sierra wave cloud came over the mountain midday like some kind of alien spaceship taking over the sky and blocking out the sun. There was some jumping to be had on the forest trail side of the park in between gale force wind gusts. For the most part there haven't been many windows of opportunity to get ready for upcoming competitions with all of the snow and weather and wind. Of course the upside is that Mammoth has Utah-like dry powder snow conditions and little spots with windblown untouched powder. And it looks like the storms are going to keep coming while I am in Florida next week for the holidays. Hoping to get a few solid days of riding the parks and pipe when I get back.

December 15, 2008 Mammoth Lakes, CA It finally snowed...a lot. Thigh to waist deep with some help from the wind on most of the mountain...really had to be creative to link lines that were steep enough as the terrain here isn't exactly steep, at least not on the lower mountain and without Lincoln Mountain open. Some good pillowy stuff to be found, really good snow quality, cold powder, some of the best snow I have ever seen here. Today was extremely fun. But I am feeling some sadness and frustration as I got a call from Jackson Hole about the 100 day club people being there early for the new tram opening day...and I am sitting here watching the Natural Selection on Fuel TV (this is the first time I've seen the tv show)...I am like "what exactly am I doing here in Mammoth?" Well at least now we have snow...they will build more jumps. They were building the second wall of the pipe today in the storm. Cutting things close in terms of having the kind of preparation I want before I go off to do what I want to do. So much of preparation is now in my mind.

December 3, 2008 Mammoth Lakes, CA There was a dry spell, then it snowed right before Thanksgiving, I really liked my Chair 5 runs from that storm... and now we are in another dry period (high pressure ridging, all of that). Snowmaking is happening again so hopefully the pipe will be ready in another 2 weeks or at least by Christmas. I hit the little transition on the side of some park jib thing today and it was like "ooh, this is nice". I am really missing doing things with which I am most familiar and experienced...but it has been increasingly productive for me here meandering through the jib world (and handful of jumps). The 20-25 footer which is the size that would be most suited to "comfortable" new learning feels like it is shrinking in the take off and landing department so I am not doing things of the sort I am capable. I think the pipe is taking over that lower general area soon... It is pretty mind-boggling how much work they put into switching things up almost every night and keeping things groomed and manicured. I have to keep in mind that this is really just a "pre-season" version of the full parks to come. Somedays I spend a couple hours just riding around the mountain and sometimes I like to find some steepness and go fast. I think I am hungering for the "park as estuary" kind of like what June Mountain can be and sometimes South Park is here on a slow day...I am not really after the showing off in Main Park thing right now. I just want to take some trick projects I have been working on and finish them in a cozy environment.

November 17, 2008 Mammoth Lakes, CA The mountain is open and has been open since November 3. Winter came early with some new snow at the beginning of November and again the next weekend making for a nice powder day on Chair 3 Sunday November 9. It was a pretty exciting drive down from Oregon as I drove along the edge of the massive storm as it hit Mt. Shasta and then again as it was bearing down on the Central Sierra. Since the winter conditions retreated (and we are in a dry spell for awhile now) I am doing what I can to get back into the park riding thing while taking plently of time to play and slash around in the slush on the runs I know well. It feels pretty flat compared to Jackson and that was not unexpected. I've had a lot of good lines off the top to keep that vertical hunger satiated... I made it through the TGR premiere the other night only crying twice about not being in Jackson -- there is a lot of inner confusion in relation to leaving something so good yet knowing that pursuit of another plane of progression would be good for me too (and not being as landlocked I can run away to the ocean if I get the overwhelming urge). And with the Canadian Open getting postponed until February I have some time to get things sorted. Here is a photo of a glimpse back at the mountain here in Mammoth on opening day.