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Our next two Hotties on the Hill are two guys we met on a huge group trip to Mammoth in January 2006. Eileen had organized a big group and we were in two separate condos - 6 or 7 people each! It was an amazing 3-day weekend with TONS of snow and lots of fun. Here is Little Jenny, me, and Eileen on our first night out with the big crew, at Dublins in the Mammoth Village.

Greg is from San Diego, and Wade is from Orange County. Eileen knew Greg from playing softball with him, and then he ended up bringing Wade along in the 2nd condo. These guys are awesome snowboarders - super fast yet always in control, and look good while doing it!

They took us all up to Cornice, Dave’s Run, and all those insane runs way at the top of the mountain. Only after a little “Liquid Courage” at McCoy were we ready to tackle these double blacks!

Luckily there was a lot of snow this season, so the runs were pretty manageable… once we got over our initial fear. We ended up taking the gondola up to the runs quite a few times. Here is a pic of the whole crew in the gondola…

But I tell you those guys ALWAYS beat us down the mountain, no matter how fast I felt like I was going!

Of course no trip to Mammoth would be complete without a night of craziness out dancing… here’s Wade dancin’ a fool, with Stacey to his left.

They were as good of dancers as they were snowboarders! Really fun, all-around good guys. (That’s me, Wade, and Greg.)

And a precursor of things to come… Wade & Little Jenny the next morning, as we cleaned all the new snow off Little Jenny’s car…

To finish the story - a happy ending! Now Wade and Little Jenny are dating, mainly as a result of this trip! She has her own personal hottie on the hill. Go Little Jenny!

Why oh WHY, when there are loudspeakers playing music on the runs… do the ski
resorts usually play classic rock? And even in the bars… wtf?

Please! Don’t make me hear Runnin’ On Empty by Jackson Browne again!

At least in the parks there is more contemporary music: Incubus, Linkin Park, and the like. Not necessarily my style, but I don’t think anyone but me would appreciate some deep or progressive house on the hill.

Resorts… listen up! We’re not a bunch of graying baby boomers who are down for some ZEPPELIN when we’re out snowboarding! At least throw us a bone with some 80s or something. I would love it if I was cruising along and heard Rio by Duran Duran

We love snowboarding for the sheer thrill of riding down the mountain and slicing up powder while dodging skiers and little kids tucked all in a row during their lesson. But half the fun of heading out on a weekend snowboarding trip is the prospect of seeing all sorts of hot snowboarding guys both on the mountain as well as in the lodge and out having cocktails!

Since we love to meet these snowboarding hotties, we thought we’d share some of our latest treasures here on this blog… Introducing a new category of posts called “Hotties on the Hill!”

(click to enlarge)
Our inaugural Hottie on the Hill is Scott. My friend Eileen and I met Scottie during a Memorial Day trip during the epic season of 2004-2005 when they had like 16 feet of snow in Mammoth. Yep, we were still riding in feet of snow even at the end of May that season, it was amazing!

Scott lives in Lake Tahoe but was in Mammoth to hang out and visit. When I met him, he totally f’ed with me and said that these people he was hanging with were his mom and dad… gullible me believed it until he told me he was 28 (these people were only like early 40s.) Ha ha! He had a strong charisma - just look at those eyes! - and was very interesting to talk to. We had a good time hanging out at Hennessey’s! Uhh… I think we went to Lakanuki later that night too… that night was a doozy…

Okay, back to it. He’s an awesome rider - originally from Bellingham, Washington, a rad picture of him soaring thru the air on his board was even on the Mt. Baker season pass for the 04-05 season! He also skates and surfs and plays guitar… poetry writer too. And he is damn funny! (Ladies, are you listening?)

Believe it or not, I still keep in touch with him and it’s been 2 years later… definitely a unique person and really cool to know. In fact, here’s a picture of him from this summer when we hung out in LA - check out the sweet ride in my neighborhood we found for him to pose by…

Scottie - congrats on being our first Hottie on the Hill! See ya in Tahoe sometime this season, I’ll try to make it up there.

Do you have a Hottie on the Hill you’d like us to profile? Send us some pics and a brief profile and we’ll be more than happy to share!

I just learned thanks to Jessie about the new chairlift for Chair 9! For those unfamiliar with this lift, it is (was) the old two-seater chair that was at the far-left side of the trail map (I guess this is the east side of the mountain.) It provides access to a bunch of great trails that are fairly untouched by most riders and skiers, such as Gold Hill, Solitude, and some others including a bunch of stuff kinda behind where the chair drops you off.

These are such great runs! The thing is, it used to be such a pain in the ass to wait for that chair, and it took FOREVER to climb the mountain in that rickety old two-seater. Well good news! Over the summer of ‘07, the Mammoth team built a new 6-seater express lift they’ve called Cloud 9 Express, and it opens this season!

The new lift will carry 6 snowboarders or skiers at a time, in half the time of the old two-seater. Thank god, too, because that lift was always so tortorous! Plus, the new lifts are heavier than the old ones and so they won’t get blown around in the weather so much. That will be way less scary!

Read all about the new Mammoth Mountain lift upgrade for Chair 9, at the official Mammoth Mountain web site.

Thanks to Jessie for tipping me off on this… I shoulda known though, since it is raining in LA and that usually means snow, snow, and more snow in our favorite snowboarding resort, Mammoth.

Here’s the snow report from the official Mammoth Mountain web site’s snow report:

morning conditions
New Snow: 1-2 feet
Storm Totals: 12-24 inches so far
Depth: 12-20 inches
Surface Conditions: Fresh Powder,Obstacles Exist,Packed Powder
Weather

Conditions: snow
Morning temp: 21.1°
Daytime temps: mid 20’s
Wind: gusty

If you are headed up there this weekend, you are so lucky!

Ahh, the drive we love to hate. For those of us in Southern California, a trip to the mountains for snowboarding or skiing usually means we head to Mammoth Mountain. This drive can take up to 7 hours if you’re coming from the San Diego metro area. Luckily, since moving to Los Angeles, I’ve conveniently shaved about 2 hours off my trip. Still - 5 hours in a car is a mighty long time. You can only listen to so many hours on an iPod or CD player… Me, I like to interact with the people in the car with me - so it comes down to good conversation.

Good conversation can come about naturally, especially if you’re with a naturally loquacious carfull of buddies. But, sometimes you’re with people you don’t know that well, so it’s fun to “force” the conversation by playing games or asking personal questions of one another. Here are some of my faves, which I’ve been known to pull out of nowhere in dead silence in the middle of 395! I guess you could classify these as “the superlatives.”

• What’s your favorite place to snowboard and why?
• What was the worst injury you ever sustained, and how did it happen?
• What was the most embarrassing moment you’ve ever experienced? (note: these usually involve farts, sex, peeing, or some other bodily function, so this Q can be fun when everyone tries to one-up one another.) Also fun to break the ice in a group of strangers you may be car-pooling with!
• What was your first concert? First record you ever bought (bonus points if it really was a record! Damn youngsters…)
• What’s your favorite place you ever lived?
• What is the rudest thing anyone ever did to you?
• Describe the worst haircut you’ve ever had.
• Weirdest name of anyone you ever dated

You’d be surprised at how well these spark conversation and break the ice among strangers who you may be spending the rest of the weekend snowboarding with in your group Mammoth condo!

You can also play silly games like:

• Pick a category, then have one person start with an item in that category. Go thru the car taking turns naming another item that begins with the letter that ended the first item, and so on. Example: Category is Movies - first one “Transformers.” Second one “Silent Night, Deadly Night.” Third one “Terminator.” Fourth one “Rosemary’s Baby.” You get it! (and boy did I pull out some obscure ones there…)
• the old favorite, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (works especially well in carloads of snowboarders from Los Angeles, haha)
• Pick a category and see how many items in the category you can name without repeating one - for example “ice cream flavors…”

The games are fun but for my money, “the superlatives” are way more fun. What are some other (legal) ways to pass the time in a car?

While we wrap up our scorching summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, I’ll be getting another two weeks of it as I head to Australia till Nov. 17. Just as we turn our clocks back and the “true” beginning of winter is here, I get to go enjoy the sun and heat of the Gold Coast.

It’ll make for difficulties getting into the wintertime and snowboarding mindset… wait a second, no it won’t.

They do have some mountains and some ski resorts in Australia, but they are far away from where I’ll be (Brisbane/Cairns/Sydney) for my vacation. We’ll be indulging mostly in summertime activities such as surfing and my newly-acquired sport, scuba diving!

So. Mammoth is scheduled to open this year on November 8 - that’s a mere 6 days away! Hmmm… looks like temperatures are still in the high 40s in the daytime. Will there be snow? Watch the National Weather Service forecast to find out!

Did you take advantage of the special discounted Silver season pass that went on sale around May of this year? I think it was only $500 or so, what a bargain! But that was sold in limited quantities and for a very limited time.

Well, if ya missed out like I did, here are a few other Mammoth ski and snowboarding deals you can take advantage of for the 2007-2008 ski season:

• The big daddy - the Gold Pass - Unrestricted skiing and snowboarding at Mammoth for the whole season: $1600 for adults
• Something new - Mammoth Rewards Card - now this looks pretty cool! It’s $49 for an adult card, then you get $10 off each day’s ski lift ticket and the 11th ticket is free. Check it out!
• Early season ski pass & mountain lodging deals - they’re OK but I like to book my own deals…

Pray for snow!