Angeles Mountains Burn Zone, March 13, 2011

Mid March saw one of the first weekends not spent at Mammoth in a few months.  Thus, it only makes sense that to take advantage of some spring-ish sunshine around home...we did some more skiing.  Shocking! 

There's a little local mountain, Mt. Waterman, just North of the city up the 2 freeway in the Angeles Mountains, which means that even when it's 70 out, you can still be on your board in the snow in under an hour.

Aaaaand one more point on the tally for LA. 

We haven't been back since the massive 2009 Station Fire that burnt over 160,000+ acres of the Angeles Forest, lasting from the end of August to about mid October. You could see and smell the smoke from all over the city and even once the fire was out, the danger of mud and rock slides stuck around for a few more months. 

(View from my deck.  I'm the one with the weirdly inappropriate smile.)

(looking out over the Silverlake reservoir, from the bike path)

Even though we knew the damage from the fire was pretty widespread, I was still shocked at the sight of it all. It just goes on, and on, and on... 

(Mt. Baldy in the distance)

  

The drive was mainly to Waterman but it was also to get a first look at how the forest and our old hiking grounds were coming along. 

In a word; slowly.

 

Mammoth Snowpocalypse! December 2011

Clearly, we're big football lovers and skiers/snowboarders so, Fall and Winter aren't filled with adventures all over the place so much as in two places: USC Collesium and and Mammoth Mountain; over and over and over until Fall blends into Winter and all the snow from the past years just sort of gloms together in a fluffy white schedule death grip...in a good way haha.  So once the Collesium finally lets us go, Mammoth steps right in, as usual. 

We had a beyond epic start to the season with over 27 feet of snow in December alone. And we barely made it out of town that first weekend in tact. Totall madness. As in, roadside plow-made snow walls multiple cars high, buried on your board up to your neck kind of snow. 

But the powder was worth it, as always.  Not much time for the springtime slopeside cocktail breaks I've come to hold so dear, but there's plenty of time for that once things start to melt...