Massive and Mammoth

And now for the big photo wrap up of our weekend outdoors at Mammoth mountain.I sent the snow bunnies off to ski Friday morning. I noted that the forecast called for snow to begin falling starting at 7 that night and continuing until after we left. This would be my only shot at driving around the town and seeing any sights. So I did.

These are the gayest figure skating bears I have ever seen.

The snow was not just up to the front door, it was up past the patio door. On the deck. On the second floor. (this was before another 4 feet of snow fell.)
On the right the sign reads "Road Narrows"... uh, in front of me there is a wall of snow 8 feet high. That's not narrow, that's CLOSED.

I hopped out and took a quick picture of myself in front of the frozen lake. When I grabbed my camera to see if the picture worked, the camera wouldn't display the photo and wouldn't retract the lens. I had to get back into the warm car to make it work. I was outside for maybe, uh, 5 minutes. Oh, I think I should have worn a warmer outfit as well. (But I did look good!)

There is a tunnel you can ski through down to the lake.

And then promptly at 7 pm, the snow began to fall.

Look out for angry bears!

The snow bunnies bravely went back out on Saturday. By lunch, they were down to two out of three. I rode the gondola up to the main lodge to meet Lyle and Todd for lunch. The gondola ride was better than Disneyland. It was windy and we were SWINGING!

About an hour after lunch, Todd and Lyle packed it in. Too cold. Too windy. Luckily, Todd still had lip protection.

Unfortunately, Lyle did not have bunny ear protection (from me).

You can see there was a fair bit more snow around the houses day two.

We met up with friends for Aprés ski. There will be no photos of this event.

Day three arrived and it was STILL SNOWING. Compare the next two pictures:Saturday Gondola ride.

Sunday Gondola ride.

The bear was cold and grizzly and none of my snow bunnies went up the hill.

We found the perfect accessory to go with Dan's highlighter yellow jacket.

A few final pics to seal the memories in.

There was no escaping the snow.

We even looked at getting some warmer hats!

(Oh, and if you look up at the photo header at the top, that's a panorama photo I took on Friday of the valley below.)