Mammoth Memories

Most of you know about my days as a liftie up in Mammoth. I can best sum up my experiences at Mammoth with the story of my first day working back when I was 18 years old: It was late in the season and my very first day was also the end of season party for one of the lodges. I almost didn't go seeing as I hadn't actually worked a day of the season yet, but the homies wouldn't have it and I got to come along. Without saying too much about the activities that went on, I must say that after the party I immediately lost all apprehension about my bosses, my co-workers and the fact that I picked up and moved to a random mountain in a timespan of 3 days. Talk about your all-time icebreakers; I wish every job had an orientation like I got my first day as a Canyon liftie.

Anyway, I found an old card for my camera and it had some awesome pictures and memories of seasons past. I thought I put a few up along with the stories behind them...


First shot is of the shit-heap that was my room. It was a single hotel room that they crammed two bunk beds and four employees into. The result? Trash monuments and the physical act of walking being no longer possible. That's Scrubs on the TV, one of ten channels we got; I have that show memorized.


Here are more shots of the trash kingdom, a true testament to the glory of the resort employee lifestyle. One day everyone realized that our room was literally radioactive, and we organized an effort to sanitize the domicile and make living conditions bearable. Some twenty trash bags later things were cleaner (yet still not clean), but when someone pointed out the dumpster was across the street, out on the balcony the bags went. I guess anywhere but on the floor was a major improvement...


This is the elusive trash kingdom balcony. One time my roomates downed a bottle of Jager and when I got back to the place one of them was asleep next to the toilet and the other was here on this balcony. He was shirtless and completely wasted, standing still as a statue just staring at nothing in particular; it was snowing pretty thick-like, and I laughed and laughed.

Oh, and those empty booze boxes? That's a girls room... goddamn alcoholics...haha.


Shot from the top of chair 5. This was my test shot with my new camera, which turned out to be a pretty nice photo. Chair 5 is an awesome all-mountain access chair at Mammoth. You can go to any of the lodges from it, which is a good 15 to 30 minute ride depending.


This is a pretty awesome shot riding into Mammoth on the 395, snow capped Sierras and luminous rays of sunshine.


This is my favorite picture of all time, probably because this was my favorite lift of all time. Once I put in some time as a liftie Mammoth started sending me to chair 9, which was one of the most untouched, out-of-the-way and chill lifts on the mountain. Chair 9 is the only access to an entire face of Mammoth, and this is the face you simply can't miss on a powder day.

I say it was my favorite lift because the summer after I took this shot from the lift shack Mammoth tore her down and installed the new six person "Cloud 9 Express". If I'm remembering correctly, this was the last of the original lifts Mammoth opened when it first went into operation. The two-seater took 10 minutes to get to the top, but that long ride was probably the best part about it. Riding that lift to open the top shack, and being the only one on it--the only one on that side of the mountain--was just awesome.

I haven't been back to Mammoth since that season, but I'm sure the six seater blew that area to shit and now it's constantly crowded and the complete opposite of what it used to be. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that assumption.