I know a lot of people assume I grew up exclusively in Hawaii. They are wrong. I grew up in southern Cal and then went to high school in Mammoth. In fact there was a time when I aspired to be a ski racer. Fortunately it didn’t work out, because I might not have ended up here on Maui if it had, but at the time I was extremely disappointed. None the less I absolutely love Mammoth’s skiing, people, and wilderness. So when I had the chance to return this April I jumped at the chance.
Mammoth mountain was having a three day fun packed fund raiser for the race team in the form of a dual GS race, social events and auction/gala, with many of the US. ski team members, Hollywood types, and a bunch of us old wanna be racers like myself.
I got there a day early to try and chink off some of the rust I knew I would surely have, and I hit the jackpot. It had stormed the whole day before and when I woke up the following day, it was bluebird baby. It didn’t take me long from peeking out the window in the morning to getting on that first chair. My buddy Chris played tour guide that morning along with his wife Lara to get us as much untracked as possible. In Mammoth untracked powder lasts about as long as a snowball in Death Valley. If you want to get more than one run of freshies you gotta have a plan and thanks to Chris we had about four of them. What a day !!!
The racing was great fun and quite honestly it was awesome to be able to compare my time with some of the U.S. guys. Of course I expected to be crushed by them and I was, but I didn’t expect to get chicked so hard ( beaten by a girl). Stacy Cook and Kaylin Richardson beat me down so hard that my ego ended up in intensive care for a week. It’s so impressive to see really good skiers at work, maybe I have that extra appreciation for what they do because I wanted to be one of them so badly.
Anyway what a terrific job the Mammoth people did with this event and I hear it raised quite a bit of money to further the development for the young racers. Hopefully I get to go again next year so please join me. I’m sure it will be a ton of fun. Again thank you to all of my Mammoth ohana for making this trip one of the highlights of my year, especially Rusty, Bill and Pam.
Aloha
Dave
Hi Dave,
I had no idea about your skiing racing past…I grew up (and I’m currently living in Bend OR) with my wife and two boys. I grew up skiing and did not get into ski racing until highschool…which ended up being a few years two late of a start to make it all the way. Yet, I learned a lot from it, and miss the pressure of competition. I have always loved the ocean and came within inches to moving to Hawaii after my freshman year of college to pursue “water” sports. I ended up not going and still dream of it at times, but ended up meeting my beautiful wife the next year, and now have to amazing young boys (Kai 18 months, and Kadyn 3.5)…you could say it was ment to be, and a major blessing. And I still love the ocean…and water in general. Last year I saw some people SUPing on the river we have running through town…I instantly wanted to get into it. I have devoured any material on SUPing and ocean related sports ever since, I have read many of your articles and have truly been inspired by both you and Laird among others. I’m currently trying to save up money for a SUP (while going to grad school with a family it takes awhile)…and am also looking into trying to join the local paddling club. I hope one day our paths will cross, thank you for the inspiration!
Mahalo,
Ryan