Mammoth Opening Weekend

This past weekend was Mammoth's Opening Weekend, and because I've been into torturing myself by going to the openings of all the mountains around Tahoe, even though I can't ride yet, I made the send to Mammoth.

On Thursday it started snowing while I was in school so I left as soon as class got out,  unsure of how bad the storm might get. I arrived in the Mammoth Village a little after 7pm and realized I had no idea of what I was doing for the night. My phone was stolen a couple weeks ago so communication is basically impossible. The only way I can find my friends is by just guessing where they'll be and going there. My first stop was Sushi Rei for the Volcom VIP Reception. I ran into friends there so I hung out a drank for a while. I ended up meeting a ton more people too and we eventually all made our way over to Lakanuki to party more. Sometime around two our little gang rolled up to our friend's condo up the street and crashed there.

Friday morning started off slow but eventually everyone got their stuff together and went out to ride. Lucky me got to stay inside the condo all day and watch Real Housewives of Atlanta/attempt to do homework. When everyone came back from riding we hot tubed and then went down to the village. I watched a couple minutes of the Horgasm: A Love Story premiere but Lakanuki was too crowded for my taste so I left to find something else to do. I ended up running into some of the Yobeat guys outside Gomez's and hung out with them. Together we ventured over to Corey Smith's Spring Break Snowboards art show. There were some amazing photographs there, as well as the craziest boards I've ever seen. After the show we went up to this amazing huge suite (I think it was Transworld's) and did some party preparation. Then it was back to Lakanuki for some madness. Back in the spring when I blew my knee out I had emailed Cale Zima, who was about 3 months ahead of me in recovery, and chatted with him about knee stuff. I met him for the first time in real life at Lakanuki and did some more knee talk/shot drinking. Super cool guy. At the end up the night I somehow was convinced by a couple friends to drive up to their spot at the mountain. There we got into some shenanigans (asbestos was definitely involved) and then passed out.

On Saturday all the guys in the house went out pretty early to ride and because I was already at the mountain I figured I'd go out and take some pictures. I spent the day chugging Monsters and hiking the park in my jeans and tennis shoes. Meanwhile, Matty Mo kept the tunes fresh in the lodge all day. After quitting my photog endeavor I went back to the Mammoth Inn where I had spent the previous night. The rest of the evening involved watching Skeleton Crew's new video Media Offline, playing a multi-story game of Hot Lava with Ethan Deiss, discussing how wonderful riding pipe long and hard is, and drinking Monster-Vodkas. Eventually our gang made it out to Sushi Rei for dinner and stuffed ourselves with the good stuff. I felt kind of bad that Monster payed the tab and I probably shouldn't have been covered, but my one roll and a Soppora probably won't dent the company's financials. We were at the restaraunt for a while because different friends kept sitting down and kicking it, but at some point we got out of there and went up to the 32 condo. There was a girl there- it was so exciting. haha I finally got to hang out with another female for the first time that weekend. Our huge group loaded up a bus and ventured up to the lodge for the RZA concert. I managed to walk into the Vestal VIP lounge with the rest of the group, despite being non-very-important, and enjoyed the free vodka drinks and foam-glow-stick battles for the two hours we had until the show started. RZA was ok, but I couldn't understand a word he was saying so I just talked to friends for most of the show. The last stop on Saturday night was to Mason Aguirre's house for his birthday party. That was pretty fun and low key. Really awesome way to end the night- surrounded by friends, good energy, stale McDonald's french fries, and more vodka.

I had never decided what day I would leave Mammoth on, but when I woke up Sunday morning I felt like it was time to go. It had been a full weekend and I was ready to get home, sleep in my bed and do a major party detox. I'm glad I went to Mammoth because it definitely motivated me to kick some physical therapy butt so I can get on the snow again. I'm pumped for the season and I can't wait for more good times with friends.

Here's a couple photos I took, before I got lazy and stopped pretending to be a photographer.

Mammoth Opening Weekend 2012, a set on Flickr.

And Here's a video of the weekend that I didn't make: