The two guys in the jacuzzi came all the way from Boston.

While most people are firing up the backyard barbecue and dipping their toes in the pool, we’re up here SKIING, at Mammoth Mountain.

That’s why I live in California.  We’d cruise around the bare spots in Vermont, and if we were lucky, our last turns would take place in April.  But here in Mammoth, they’re going till July 4th, and there isn’t a bare spot ANYWHERE!

Oh, volcanic rock outcroppings have been denuded of snow, but they’re clear in the middle of winter.  But on the slopes, where you ski, it’s all white, it’s PARADISE!

At this time of the year they open the lifts at 7.  Because of the heat.  But the girl at the desk at the Mammoth Mountain Inn told us that to go out any earlier than 8:30 would be a waste, because they salt the slopes, and it would be rock hard.

And by time we made our first turns at 9:15, it was still quite firm.  But shortly thereafter, and until about 1:45, just before they shut the lifts down at 2, it was beautiful corn snow.  Better than it was in Vail on the last day of the season.

Now back in the seventies, they only salted the Face of 3.  But today they salted EVERY GROOMED SLOPE!  (Salt melts the snow slightly and then causes it to firm up, and stay firm most of the day.)  They were spending dough, and it worked, because there were probably a thousand people on the hill.  I kept asking them…why did they come?  And they looked at me with shiteating grins and said COME ON, SKIING IN JUNE??  They just couldn’t resist.

After a run down Stump Alley, and a trial run down the Face of 3, we took the gondola up to the top.  And at Mammoth it really IS the top.  At Vail you’re AMONGST the mountains.  Here you’re on the topmost peak in the region.  You can look MILES down into the valleys, it’s enough to give you vertigo.  And from this perch we descended down Cornice Bowl.  Three times.  Hell, we had to get it when it was good.  Then we skied from the back of 3 all the way across 5 to Solitude, where…  Well, maybe you don’t know this condition.  If something hasn’t been skied for a few weeks, you get the dreaded sun cups.  Like skiing in an egg carton.  But if it’s only been about a week, you get this layer of corn snow…  I can only liken it to skiing in Carvel.  And having traversed over, we were the ONLY PEOPLE ON THE SLOPE!

But halfway down, I made a cardinal error.  A fuck-up nonpareil.  I pissed into the wind.

Yes, on this day, June 10th, 2006, there was not a cloud in the sky, but there was a pretty stiff wind.  Which blew my pee right back on me.  I felt like Jeff Bridges and John Goodman in "The Big Lebowski".

And, because of the salt on the outrun, we kept our speed ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM!  It was BETTER than skiing in April in Vermont.  I mean we’re riding the lift and all we can think is how fucking great this is, skiing in June.

After three hours straight, we took to the sundeck, for a little sustenance.  Felice got a chicken pesto sandwich from the cafeteria inside, but I had to buy a bratwurst cooked on the outside grill.  Shit, everything tastes better cooked outside.

And after lunch, everything was just about as firm, albeit a tad slower.  All the lanes down the face of the mountain, like Fascination and Far West, were DELICIOUS!  And after Felice called it a day, I traversed over to 5 for another run.  It was just too good.

Calling it a day at 2, we took the car down to the Hot Creek.  To bathe in the naturally heated waters.  Unfortunately, due to thermal/seismic activity, we were not allowed in.  They just closed it on June 2nd.  Because of bubbling mud pots and new geysers.  Hell, I respect mud pots.  Have you ever seen them in Yellowstone?  They’re like something from Wllly Wonka’s chocolate factory, but they’d fry you in SECONDS!

So, after getting some food at Vons, and remarking how it was summer in town but we’d been SKIING earlier in the day, we took a short tour around town and then came back to the Mammoth Mountain Inn to go in the pool.

Usually, hotels are too cheap to heat these things properly.  I figured I had to gird myself.  We sat in the jacuzzi for ten minutes, to warm our cores, and THEN descended into the pool.  Which was like heaven.  We couldn’t get out.  It was PERFECTLY warm.  We looked up at the towering ridge, where we’d made turns all morning.  You couldn’t keep the smiles from our faces.