www.snowboard-women.com

This guy, spotted in Mammoth a month ago, was over-the-top with his sun protection - he had so much on that his skin looked gray… it kinda matched his hair! Who knows, his eyebrows may have already been gray but it looked like just the excess sunscreen turned them lighter:

I’m all for sun protection, but this was just crazy. The funniest thing was when he started putting on MORE! Jessie and I just about died laughing…

All right, all right, I know I should have posted this weeks ago so all of you folks who drive up to the mountain on a regular basis could have some new ideas for your in-car playlists! Even though the season is drawing to a close (argh, it was near 80 in some areas in LA last weekend), I know I’ll still be heading up to Mammoth a few more times.

With the long drive, in addition to the games and conversation to be had, good music is a must for passing the time. I asked the usual suspects what music they love to hear either when they’re driving, getting suited up to hit the hill in the morning, or having drinks while preparing to hit the town after a day of boarding! Ranging from punk to old school hip-hop, these choices will get you pumped up.

Eileen

Social D - Mommies little monster
Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
Offspring - Original Prankster
Linkin Park - What I’ve done
3 doors down - Kryptonite
Nickleback - Rockstar
Lenny Kravitz - Fly away
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

Stacy

Princess Pop:
- Britney’s new hits Gimme More and Piece of
Me…or pretty much the whole new album!

Hip Hop with a California twist:
- Biggie - Going back to Cali
- 2Pac - California Love
- LLCoolJ - Goin back to Cali

White Trash Rock:
- Ozzy - Crazy Train or I don’t know
- AC/DC - Back in Black
- Metallica - Master of Puppets

Lil Jenny

Old Skool Albums:

Jane’s Addiction (ALL OF THEM!!!!)
Green Day - Dookie
Offspring - Ixnay on the Hombre
Face To Face - Face To Face
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Hole - Live Through This
Alanis Morrisette (when I was with girls only) - Jagged Little Pill
Particularly You Oughta Know, Hand In My Pocket, Isn’t It Ironic

Nowadays add to the Old School:
Sum 41 - No Reason, love it!
Madonna - Sorry
80’s New Wave especially
B-Movie - nowhere Girl
Depeche Mode
Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf

Shannon from Shayboarder wrote a post about her music playlists back in December.

As for me, I’m partial to hip-hop… particularly Ludacris’ “MOVE BITCH” track… it’s fun to play in the car when we’re trying to find parking and people are being idiots

Jessie and I also love the Beastie Boys, Missy Elliot… and I really like the latest Kanye album. I’m also a house music head but that doesn’t always go over well!

What is some of your favorite music for snowboarding, driving to the mountains, or before you go out and do the apres-ski thing?

Spotted on the Snow Valley slopes last Monday…

This is wrong on so many levels!

On Monday Liz and I both had off work so with her free Snow Valley tickets from a Ralphs promotion we drove up for the day. The cool thing about Snow Valley is that it’s on the way to Big Bear, but is about 30 minutes less drive time each way through those winding mountain roads. It’s promoted as being “140 turns closer to skiing!”

You can actually see Big Bear Lake from the chairlift, it was beautiful in the distance:

The day was gorgeous - blue skies with no clouds, and a temp around mid 40’s. And it was a Monday, so there was NOBODY on the mountain! I think there were maybe 30 cars in the entire parking lot.

Snow Valley was actually a pleasant surprise - I have driven past it countless times en route to Snow Summit, and I always thought it was some rinky-dink tubing/sledding resort. Not so! There’s actually 14 different chairs, and at the very top (~7800 ft. elevation) there are some black diamond runs. The resort even has a varied and large terrain park, with features including little kickers, tabletops, giant tires to jump over, and tons of rails & fun boxes. (No halfpipe though.) Here I am on the approach:

Here’s Liz going off the edge of the rainbow rail:

They had just gotten 6 inches of snow on Sunday, but there were high winds creating a lot of icy conditions in spite of the runs being groomed. It really didn’t soften up until after 1:30pm, with the sun beating down.

Because it was Monday, and it was so empty, Snow Valley only opened Chair 1. So unfortunately we didn’t experience the full mountain, only about 3-4 of the runs available. We couldn’t get to the back/top runs that almost looked like they were in a little bowl.

We got a lot of runs in though, and were the second-to-last people off the hill at the end of the day! (We were dawdling around in the park taking pictures of each other on the little jumps.) For free tickets, even though we had limited run/chairlift access, it was totally worth it. I got in one more day this season, and got to practice hitting the tabletops without a ton of people in the park.

Liz and I both really enjoyed the day - we want to go back another time when it’s fully open. Lift tickets are only $52 (weekends) and you can usually find some discounts through one of the resort’s promotional partners. Check them out sometime!

It’s been very spring-like here in LA the past two weeks, so it’s been somewhat discouraging in terms of making plans to go snowboarding. However, the forecast for this weekend is for cooler temps and rain in LA county, with snow levels in our local mountains coming down to 4000 feet on Sunday. Yay!

As such, Liz and I are planning to hit Snow Valley on Monday since we both have off work. I’ve never been to that resort but I am looking forward to some fresh snow and exploring a new mountain! It’s on highway 18, on the way up to Big Bear. Elevations are a little lower, but the peak is over 7800′ and the base around 6800. There look to be a lot of trails that are blacks, so hopefully it will be a pleasant surprise.

Afterwards, maybe we’ll even make it back to LA for a few green beers since Mon is St. Patrick’s Day. Will report back with pictures early next week!

Weather forecast for Snow Valley

Powder blue jacket, pink and grey camoflage pants, and a purple helmet with pink goggle straps? I’m sorry, but this outfit belongs on a Care Bear, NOT a snowboarder.

Do you have any “don’ts” from your time on the hill? Send them in! Email me - erica AT snowboard-women dotcom.

We met Daniella at Mill Cafe right after we met Woolly… she was wearing the coolest sunglasses! She snowboards and was taking a break that afternoon on the sundeck. I had to get a pic of those glasses - classic.

Nice meeting you Daniella!

Rate this hottie… (and her sunglasses!) (3 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

 Loading …

We met these guys at Whiskey Creek during the amazing Happy Hour there. (ps- go there from 4pm-5:30pm, you will not be sorry - half price on all their great food!)

Group of really cool guys from San Diego, celebrating a “guys weekend” on the hill. From left - Darren, Jeff, (Jessie in the middle), Kevin, and Ryan.

If I remember correctly, Darren and Ryan ski, and Jeff and Kevin snowboard. Way fun meeting you guys!

Rate ‘em! (5 votes, average: 3.6 out of 5)

 Loading …

Well, our most recent Mammoth weekend was somewhat bittersweet. We were so excited because there was 21″ of new snow from earlier in the week, and we figured with the grooming that Mammoth Mountain does every day, and continuing cold temps, the conditions would still be good.

We drove up late afternoon on Friday, and saw some amazing light in the mountains and high desert as the sun set.

Little did we know that by Saturday morning, winds in town were 40+ MPH and on the top they were reported to be nearly 80MPH! Our condo-mates headed up to the hill right at 8am so they could be in line when the lifts opened, while Jessie and I did our usual, wake up after 8 and relax a bit with a good breakfast and some coffee. This turns out to be for the best… Mammoth only opened 3 of the “beginner” chairs due to the winds all over the mountain - bummer. So basically you could pay $79 and only access the beginner chairs.

With this in mind, we didn’t go up to the mountain until 12:30 - we bought a half day and snowboarded all afternoon on Sat. They still didn’t open half the mountain (the higher chairs) due to the continued winds, so we were more or less restricted to the Canyon Lodge runs and occasional Chair 5 and Gold Rush.

It wasn’t a great day - overcast with flat light, crunchy conditions, freezing wind, and crowds because all the people were clamoring for the same chairs and runs. Check this out… you couldn’t even see the top!

We did Whiskey Creek for half price food and $10 pitchers for apres-ski on Saturday afternoon when we got off the hill, then Saturday night we went out to Hennessey’s where they had a dance floor cleared and a DJ in there. It was pretty fun, definitely an older crowd than our former haunt, Lakanuki. We danced and met some cool people (yes, some hotties on the hill!)

On Sunday we were on the hill by 10:30, and by then conditions had vastly improved!

A gorgeous bluebird day, but sadly, the winds on the top on Sunday were A HUNDRED MPH! Even worse than Sat.! So they still didn’t open the top gondola or Chair 23 (our fav runs) all day. Here’s a pic of the gondolas parked at McCoy; they couldn’t go higher than that cuz of the winds.

Nonetheless, we enjoyed a really nice day on the rest of the mountain - Spook off Gold Rush down to Lower Dry Creek was awesome, we did it at least 4 times in a row. The snow was nice and soft, not even hardpack in many places. A little icy on some of the runs, but we still rocked it.

And capping off the weekend, at the end of one of those runs we ended up seeing Woolly at the Mill Cafe! Sunday definitely made up for Saturday.

Juicy is headed back up for the Roxy Chicken Jam at the end of the month; I won’t be able to make it… but I expect a full report! Look for her post in a few weeks.

More pictures from the trip are available at our Flickr page.

More details on our recent Mammoth weekend to come, met lots of fun people and had a great day on the hill on Sunday, but the best moment of this trip was MEETING WOOLLY!!

We got to the bottom of Lower Dry Creek and I was bent over unstrapping my binding to get back in line, when Jess screamed out “There’s Woolly!” We both started freaking out, making a scene, and yelling “WOOLLY! WOOLLY! OH MY GOD!” like the nerds we are… everyone in the lift line was laughing and pointing, even the lifties! Woolly came over and was dancing with us and taking pics, totally hamming it up. So cute!

Highlight of the trip! WE LOVE YOU WOOLLY!