There's a storm brewing in Mammoth...

A short night of rest, gray skies, in addition to many things to do in the morning, we hit the road around noon from Park City to Mammoth. We made pretty good time along the way, all the while checking the oil in my boyfriends' Subaru every time we got gas. Around 3 we arrived in Ely, NV. After gassing up we were antsy to get on the road as some bad weather was moving in on us, however, Max decided to check the oil once again. 

Fortunately he did, and we found the radiator was leaking, we took the car to the nearest Auto Repair shop, and were told that we would not make it to Mammoth, and they would not have a new radiator in for the car until Wednesday. That simply would not work, as we needed to be in Mammoth the following morning for training on the Grand Prix course. 

Not being 25 poses a problem when in a small town and trying to rent a car from the only dealership there is. Thanks to the wonderful people at Precision Auto Repair, they ended up renting us their personal vehicle to get us the rest of the way, and we would return their car upon retrieving ours on our way back from Mammoth.

We got back on the road again around 5:30pm, with around 200 miles of open desert between Ely and the next town, Tonopah, I am so thankful we broke down in Ely and not in the desert with no cell phone service. The storm descended upon us quickly, and we were facing whiteout conditions when we finally pulled into Tonopah around 8:30pm. In the dark, on roads you don't know very well, in a car you are unfamiliar with, in a whiteout, it is easy to loose track of where you are, and put yourself into a bad situation. We decided to call it on the drive, and spend the night in Tonopah with the promise of better weather the following morning. It was a sound decision as the weather was relentless all night long, and when we woke in the morning it was a beautiful clear day... And we were off!

The weather in Mammoth can be notoriously brutal, and unstable, fortunately we made it to town, but by the time we made it to the resort for practice at 10am they had yet to open the course, and the wind was howling. In light of the situation we went and explored the mountain, and it was well worth it! I got some of the best powder turns I have had yet this season, and I finally got to check out all of the mountain I never really get to during contests. 

They opened just the rails in the course a little bit later in the day, and I got a little practice in, unfortunately the jumps never opened up, and I had qualifiers the next day. With the prospect of bad weather for the next couple of days the Grand Prix organizers have a ton on their plate, between scheduling, television setup, course maintenance, and so on, they were trying to have the contest regardless of the weather, but mother nature had other plans. 

I woke this morning (our qualifying day) to hurricane force winds, and complete whiteout conditions, needless to say the contest was postponed until tomorrow. The course looks awesome, I hope we get to shred!