Who thought going home would be so much of a drama. There is zero public transport from Mammoth back to the clutches of civilization. The initial plan was for a friend of Bonnie's to hire a car from Reno to get to Mammoth, and I was going to take the car to LAX. That fell through when a storm blew in and closed Reno airport taking away both the option of an internal flight and car rental from there. Also, the lady who ran the local car rental branch spun out on ice on the way to work, and they wouldn't open for a few days. So no car rental there arrgh Out comes the cardboard, it was time to get down to the corner and start hitch hiking.

It was about minus 10, snowing and did I mention minus 10. Two hours later my fingers, toes and other unmentionables had gone through the shivering stage and out the other side. I wasn't getting much luck on the lift front, although I believe I was entertaining the masses as I got lots of thumbs up, big smiles and waves. Then a vision of beauty - a Honda civic doing a U-turn and pulling over. Abby, an LA local took pity on me and we headed south. As we left the snowy mountains behind picked up speed across planes. Unfortunetly, the storm causing the snow on the mountains was blowing over semis' and caused the state highway patrol to close large sections of the Mojave desert road adding another 2 hours to our journey. But the bad luck didn't end there, I was pointing out something in the desert causing Abby to glance over while a strong wind blew us into another car traveling down the highway. crash. Dragging our sorry butts into LA, we headed to the pub to drown some sorrows before crashing for the next days flight.

Sat next to Woolly - the mountain mascot on the lift up one run. Wooly doesn't talk but his chaperon remembered Tom from years ago and started telling me about him crashing down the mountain woolys head rolling off down the mountain without him. I found in hysterical hearing about it ;)

I didn't have to stay on the couch very long as I ended up house sitting for one of Bonnies friends. The two cats were cute but didn't seem to like sleeping at night much and enjoyed pouncing and tormenting me into the early hours of the morning. But it was nice to have a bed and place to my own for a few days.

All my gear turned out to be really good, well I was pleased at least. And hitting the powder in decent gear was great. The ipod was blaring and I was nice a toasty all day. A couple of stats on mammoth: the ski area is 3,500 acres, top elevation of 11,053 feet with a vertical drop of 3,100 feet. 150 named trails, 3 gondolas and i am guessing about 30 lifts.

I was very slack over the whole holiday taking photos which as you always do - you regret instantly afterwards. But as long as I had a good time and the few I did take will remind me :)

Bonnie picked me up with a friend of hers, who had just been told that her little sister was moving out of home and coming up to Mammoth with her. So for the next 5 hour drive, the girls in back were scrapping like only sisters can...most of the way up, Bonnie was picking on me suggesting that I was going to get altitude sickness as apparently most people do, as the hours past and the hassles continued I was half expecting to die once arriving. Nothing happened, and nothing ever did..I do believe I was suckered.

That evening we arrived at Mammoth, it was lightly snowing after the ends of a little bit of cloud which dropped about a foot of snow. Which set up the first days boarding. It was fantastic to hit the slopes, the difference between Mammoth and skiing back home is immeasurable. The size of the ski field, trees everywhere and long runs.

Bonnies work seemed pretty cool, although she seem to have a few internal office politics its a good group and they get to take long lunches and hit the ski field. It can't be all bad when this is your view from her window! It is extremely social on the mountain, everyone is up for a good time and that seems to be what they have. People are almost divided in to locals (+2 seasons), transients (1 season) and patrons (me). Bonnie dragged me out to a few parties, back to ski school party, few gatherings with mates and various other outings. She did well in entertaining me. I never realised quite how cold it was on a mountain at 10,000 feet until we were in an outdoor hot tub up to my neck and the wet hair on my head froze solid.

I had bought a few toys online prior to arriving in the US. With the cheaper prices in the US as well has the tragic state of the US dollar I would have been stupid not to.

So arriving at Nicks I has quickly taken ownership (although with a little bit of a fight with Nick) of a new Forum 2006 Warrior Snowboard, Burton custom bindings, goggles, sunglasses, ipod nano, climbing harness, (and bits) and a camelbak. And now that I have arrived, I completed the set by going shopping with Jade and getting some boarding pants, boots and a nice woolly hat.

Last night Nick and Jade dragged me to a little surprise birthday party of one of their friends, a nice little party but the highlight was giving the new Nintendo Wii a test drive. This really is the future of gaming, it is pure fun and easily the next step. For those who dont know how it works, instead of pushing buttons and directions you physically move the controller to manipulate what ever you are trying to control. For example, here is Jade going nuts with a boxing game on the Wii.

After the b-day party at about 11pm, we caught up with some more of Nick varsity mates at a dodgy mexican restruant/bar for some large jugs of margaritas and nachoes. Rather happy, we stumbled home to get some sleep.

After a few days down here in LA, Bonnie is picking me up and we are heading to Mammoth Mountain. :) Bring on the tree skiing!