Independance Weekend at Mammoth Mountain Downhilliing

Well for Independence weekend I wanted to do a few things:
- Get Away from the Heat
- Get Away from the Smog
- Get Away from heaps of Traffic
- Get away from Millions of People
- Get into some Mtns
- Do some downhill Mtn biking

For the most part all my wishes were granted by a Trip to Mammoth Mountain to do 2 full days Downhilling with Cy & Chris. Al was also meant to make it but couldn't due to family responsibilities, and Rob is now helping to fight the Californian Forest Fires. We had a great time however and on Friday the 4th the chair lifts up at Mammoth were not overly crowded with only a couple of minute wait at the busiest times. However on Sat we had a few waits over 10mins for the chairs which maybe is not that bad but seemed sucky when we were use to the day before. Was cool actually being inside a Gondola rather than the Chairlifts back home where you practically hold onto your bike while sitting on the chairlifts and freeze your backside off if its cool.

If you want to have a look at a map with the tracks check out the following link. We managed to ride all of the black and double black diamond trails bar one called Pipeline and another one not yet open called Techno Rock.
http://www.mammothmountain.com/bike_ride/bike_park/trail_map/index.cfm

The Mtn is a volcano so for those of you in NZ imagine riding on Ruapehu with trees around the lower reaches, except that the Chairlifts start at 8000ft and finish at 11000 ft so you are pretty high. The top is over 3200m. Being a volcano it is full of pumice and eroded basalts and some outcrops of harder granite. This meant that the trails were for the most part very sketchy. Full of a pumice like sand which meant that many landing from drops were soft and unpredictable and many turns were skiddy. One track from the top called Skidmarks was very aptly named and one long stretch of it was straight down a scree slope. After a few runs I was getting a bit carried away and blewout the rear tire trying to dodge some ugly rocks in an uncontrolled mess going way to fast (was very pleased it was not the front tire). It really is an experience riding down that stuff at 40 or 50ks trying to keep the bike on track. Its all about balance, both on the brakes (esp the front one) and weight distribution. We saw quite a few people lay the bikes down on this slope and I had many close calls. The full face and body armor really does instill an amount of confidence into you.

The top half of the Mtn was pretty limited which was unfortunate as this was where most of the elevation was lost. If they developed this area to be as comprehensive as the lower Mtn it really would be a special place. Some of the best tracks which featured small doubles, many technical rock sections, launches and drops as well as some great general terrain were Shock Treatment, Bullet DH, Flow, Velocity DH, Chain Smoke and DC10. Really there is no point going into too much detail as its hard to explain suffice to say that many left me grinning, buzzing and well a bit beaten up. Also a bit bummed that I did not have a true DH rig as my all-mtn Enduro got a hammering and limited me on some of the bigger rock drops and one very nice looking ladder drop (higher than the Maidstone one in Welly but a lovely wooden landing) which I contemplated but thought I would break my wheels and maybe me. Still for the most part considering the beating it got it held together well.



This trip has really got me excited about my Trip to Whistler (BC, Canada) in August with the boys from NZ next month. This place was so much fun I can’t even imagine how good one of the world’s top bike parks will be. I am very interested to see how we will be all riding, esp. me as I have no real DH rig, but for the most part were feeling pretty good at Mammoth. It will be interesting to see how easy or nice I will find hardpack predictable dirt instead of wallowing round in sandy drifty stuff which seems to represent SoCal Mtn biking. Hopefully it has improved my reaction speeds. Still in saying this without any Shuttling action in the next months, I will be jumping straight into the deep end. Especially with Vic, now well versed in the ways of BC riding. I can see all three of us being called p*ssy’s on many an occasion as he flies off huge vertical faces and lands impossible drops. I think I might start taking the hard pills today in preparation...