TALES FROM THE TRIP: Mammoth
By Joe Carter
Tales From The Trips has officially been resurrected. After a short hiatus, we reopened the tomb to bring you plenty of snowboarding along with some wild times while on the road. Damn, maybe it might even inspire some of you to pile some friends into the car, and just go. This first tale from this year starts out in Salt Lake with Mac and Sam Spedale picking me up on Wednesday for a trip through the middle of nowhere to Mammoth Lakes, California. We made pretty good time, only stopping for gas, and to jump out and chase some cattle that were in the middle of the highway. We finally got into Mammoth and made a necessary stop to grab some beers and headed straight to Shayne Pospisil's pad for the night. With snow coming down all day, we decided to take it somewhat easy with about a dozen friends. We played Druggle in the garage. Kicking around a soccer ball around with some old sodas and plans of waking up somewhat early.
- - On your way from Salt Lake you can grab a little taste of Vegas in Wendover Nevada. We skipped out on the gambling, hookers, std's, alcohol, and just left with a full tank of gas.
- How bummed would you be if you had that fro on your head. Luckily my hat is on when I'm sleeping here because I have no room to talk about gross hair.
- Yeah, that's right, I just put a shot of Mac taking a piss.
- - This little guy was in the middle of the road so I we jumped out of the car and tried to catch him. Probably would have been bad if he decided to run after us instead.
- Too bad you couldn't see everyone that's in this photo. I think there were 12 of us kicking this ball around playing Druggle in Shayne's garage.
- - Bluebird morning with Jake Blauvelt and Greg Wheeler starting his truck with his brand new sled in the back. Silent Greg will be helping out Joe Carlino with the new Transworld video this season.
Next morning turned out pretty good, I guess. That is if your into bluebird powder days? A solid 10 inches of the fluffy stuff was spread around the mountain. While most people were at home watching football or some shit, the mountain was pretty much ours to get the good turns all day long. Not to mention with some of my favorite people to snowboard with. The gondola was our main choice riding top to bottom runs with a few detours around the mountain. Oh, and I almost forgot about the two old skiers that wanted to fight me at chair 12. That was a pretty hilarious that old fuckers almost got beat by our whole crew. After that we threw in a few laps through Main Park and a stop or two at the sundeck bar. I'd call that an amazing day snowboarding. If couldn’t get any better we came home to a major Thanksgiving feast! Mac and Sam's parents slayed a huge turkey with all the fixings to fill our bellies for a solid start for the rest of the night. Next stop was at the old Havoc Crew house where Mitch Richmond now resides for some pre gaming before we walked to the bar.
- To everyone that has not seen Jake Blauvelt's part in the Forum movie. You might want to pull that head out of your butt and check it out for your own good. Half-cab stomp to high speed powder turns.
- Greg Bokenkamp sends it off a natural jump right next to the chairlift. Hours before his alter ego Gerg came out.
- Shayne Pospisil grabbing a little bit of tail. Not all of us got so lucky over the trip with that.
- Nice hairdew, maybe the Alfalfa look will be a new trend in snowboarding. With some of the kooky stuff these days you never know.
- Being above the clouds in Mammoth does not really happen that often. We were really high above the clouds today though.
- Rollin Deep: Thor Ryan, Scuba, Greg Bokenkamp, Greg Wheeler, Sam Spedale, Jeff Kramer, Eric Jackson, Mac Spedale
- Greg Wheeler, no fimling today poking out a stalefish on his way into the whiteroom.
- Greg Bokenkamp lays the hell out of this backie way past all the tranny. Doesn't matter to him, because he still landed.
- L to R Mac, Shayne, EJack, Jake and Greg on top of chair 3. Hot laps all day long till close.
- I've seen Greg do some weird yoga before and was weirded out. I guess it pays off to have a tucknee indy like that.
- Who's got the beers? Little mid day thanksgiving beer break on the sundeck.
- Billabong's Andrew Mariner, Eric Jackson, Shayne Pospisil, and Jeff Curley, Tyler Heffernan, Mac Spedale getting another round
- Couple of beers deep and more pow on chair 12 for me and Mac Spedale.
- Greg Bokenkamp and Tyler Heffernan. Tyler had a little change in luck after having a good powder day riding with friends to the next day spending it at the Bridgeport jail thanks to MLPD. Bummer.
- There was some guy that didn't see the obstacles below sign and flew into rocks trying to pass us in a sketchy zone. He ate shit it was funny to me. Cool looking clouds too.
- - Wait till the pow gets beat, then you go to the park dummy. Gabe Taylor pops a frontside 180 off the most fun feature in Main Park. Do yourself a favor and watch Gabe's part in "The Boned Age".
- Ah, hells yeah. Big L and Cornell Agee.
- - Mitch Richmond has been busy all summer logging all summer to snowboard and win EJacks money playing in Mammoth this year.
- Lonnie Kauk front 3 tranny finder. I hear that there are a few Tranny's that hang out at the Mammoth bars. That ain't cool man.
- Here is Mitch again, for all you chicks out there. You might want to know that he's single and ready to mingle. So don't be shy.
- In the last photo you saw Lonnie land in the perfect spot. This is Chile sending a back rodeo way into the flat and blew up. This dude is crazy.
- Amazing day snowboarding followed up by an amazing Thanksgiving feast. Mac Spedale, Mitch Richmond, Joe Carter, Sam Spedale.
- Eric Jackson loves his c-lo.
- 4,5,6 muthafucka
- Or a 1,2,3 and your done
- Mitch winning some loot and giving directly to the amazing bar staff at Lakanuki.
- Me (Joe Carter), Gerg, Chuck real later'd.
- Hey Shayne what do you think of the cops taking our friend Tyler to jail? I agree.
- Mason Aguirre hyped on being 21.
- You might have heard of double fisting. I'm on working on next level shit.
- Mac has not seen this picture yet, but I'm gonna put it on here because it's hilarious that he has five chins. Count em.
- Sam Spedale, Peter Benchtler, and Mitch Richmond. Yeah Mitch, so cool just pointing at the camera. HA
- What do you mean last call! Maybe our night is over. Probably not.
- Sometimes people turn down drinks people give to them and that's rude. I don't like to be the rude guy.
The rest of our days there was pretty standard for a Mammoth trip. Snowboarding till the lifts closed everyday, that was pretty epic. We went out to the bars every night and had fun times there. A there was still some skating to be had so we made a few madatory stops at the amazing JLA skate park. The only shitty part of the trip was when some cops decided to take our buddy Tyler Heffernan to the Bridgeport jail for the weekend. Thanks for that one assholes. It's too bad we had to leave because Mammoth is a fun spot to be at right now. Main park is changed up a little. The freeriding is really fun with most of the mountain open now…. Just add the people in town and the nightlife and this place is bitching. We'll be back soon.
- Mac and Sam around the biggest party animal of the week. Garrett on the gondola skipping the hangover and keeping the ball rolling all weekend.
- Cody Rosenthal and some dude on little skis, Budweiser jacket, and cocktail in hand. Priceless.
- Up at it again well prepared for a long day.
- Hauling ass down Roadrunner with a dozen people is a good time. The views don't suck either
- Mammoth Main Park is the best pre season park they have had in a long time. Of course they have to get sick new rails the year I move away. Awesome.
- Cody Rosenthal has a better method than you do.
- For Thanksgiving Mammoth has already got some decent coverage. A sick park, and the nightlife was bitching. There's too many people here though. All of you should probably just stay home and play your new Shaun White video game instead. Dorks.
We dug back into the grave and pulled last seasons Tales from the Trips below:
TFTT: KINGVALE
TFTT: BOREAL
TFTT: BEAR MTN DAY 1
TFTT: BEAR MTN DAY 2
TFTT: BEAR MTN VIDEO
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TFTT: MT HOOD
