Archive - Nov 2012
November 28th
“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”
Fido buried his nose under the couch. He would have scrunched all the way under, but biscuits have taken their toll. Even if he were slender, he wouldn’t fit.
“THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!” he yelped, and dug his nose deeper under the couch. I noticed he was shaking, too.
“Fido, just what in the world are you doing?”
“Are you deaf, man?” Fido wanted to know.
“I didn’t hear anything unusual, Old Boy, except for the sweet sound of avalanche control on The Mountain. Right on time. Must be 6:30 a.m..”
“You call that sweet? Have you been watching the news?”
November 27th
Paradise resident Allen Weidner was on his way home from the bottom of the Sherwin Grade when he saw flames shooting into the early evening sky on Nov. 7.
He shot up the hill, fearing the worst. The flames were immense, leaving little doubt this was more than a simple, easily stopped fire and from what he could see, it was either his home or his next-door neighbor’s.
When he got to the ring of fire trucks and emergency vehicles, he almost turned around right there.
Under a canopy of gray skies, with rain and snow pierced by occasional shafts of sunlight, the Mammoth Track held its grand opening on Saturday, Nov. 17.
Some last-minute finishes remain before it becomes a fully functional facility, but the surface and infield were in great shape—enough for a victory lap by scores of runners and community members.
The track closed again right after the ceremony near the Whitmore Ballpark on Benton Crossing Road, but it will reopen soon to the public, pending certification.
Even so, the ceremony was altogether fitting.
November 16th
The Town of Mammoth Lakes announced today the dismissal of its bankruptcy case by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Holman. The dismissal follows the recent historic settlement of a 2008 legal judgment and cancellation of the related airport Development Agreement. The judge’s order is attached to this press release.
By
George Shirk - Times News Editor
After a hiatus of three seasons, girls basketball is back at Mammoth High School.
In the first tryouts for the new program, 33 girls took a stab at the nets under the watchful eye of new coach William Bauman, a 26-year-old long, tall—really tall—drink of water from Minnesota.
“Basketball is turning a corner in town,” said Bauman, who was recently married to Mammoth local John Eastman’s daughter, Danielle.
“It’s just the greatest sport ever invented.”
Bauman said he played a bit of college hoops before arriving in Mammoth, and is familiar with women’s basketball in particular.
Logging operations in the Reds Meadow Valley have been completed for removing down trees from the wind event of last November 30.
Consequently, the area closures in the Reds Meadow Valley will no longer be in effect.
While the Reds Meadow Road is closed to wheeled motor vehicles for the season due to snow, access to Reds Meadow Valley will now be open to winter public use, including snowshoer, skier, snowmobile and pedestrian traffic.
Before traveling into the Reds Meadow Valley, visitors should be aware of winter conditions and hazards in the area.
The new track on Benton Crossing Road near the Whitmore Animal Shelter is ready to go.
Its Grand Opening is Saturday, Nov. 17, at noon with members of the Mammoth Track Club, town officials and the track’s main proponent, runner Elaine Smith.
By
Lesley-Ann Hoxie – For the Times
It is universally acknowledged that getting an elementary school kid to sit still for 35 minutes is nearly impossible—unless you have a special kind of magical comedy.
I think most people remember their first exposure to theatre. You spent most of your days in the sunlight, until one day you and your buddy get off the bus and walk into a dark room with a brightly lit stage on the far end. I was always too short to see over the person in front of me, and would struggle to balance, sitting cross-legged in the theater seat, until the lights were all dimmed.
For the sixth straight year, the Wild & Scenic Film Festival comes to the Eastside, thanks to the Friends of the Inyo.
The films, collected by the South Yuba Rivers Citizens League (SYRCL), will show in Mammoth at the Edison Theatre on Friday, Nov. 30; in Bishop at the Cerro Coso Community College on Saturday, Dec. 1, and in Lone Pine at the Lone Pine Film Museum on Thursday, Dec. 6. All showings begin at 7 p.m. and the $10 ticket prize includes a raffle entry.
In the dark November night, the snow-struck silence is broken by a cacophony of noise and the floor of the bedroom erupts.
My border collie Skye slams up on top of the bed from the floor, bouncing on her toes, barking at the closed window.
We pull the curtain back, and shine the big flashlight, hastily retrieved from its home under the bed, toward the cars and parking lot just 30 feet from the window.
The Mono County Board of Supervisors soundly rejected an appeal of a plan to expand the Casa Diablo geothermal plant Tuesday, after two out of area (mostly) union advocacy groups appealed the project during an almost five-hour public hearing.
It’s the second time the groups have been in Mono County in the past few months. On Oct. 22, the county planning commission approved the project and recommended it to the county supervisors for approval.
The groups filed an appeal shortly after and on Tuesday, they came armed for a fight.
They got one.
The thumping bass swelled as I swaggered up the flight of stairs at Canyon Lodge for Mammoth Mountain’s opening weekend concert with RZA from the Wu Tang Clan.
The forum was lit like a disco, just dark enough to make everyone look sexy but with bright flashes keeping up with every quick beat. The crowd looked mostly young from where I stood at the bar, checking out the night’s vibe.
One hundred years ago, the fleet-footed Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep kept time to the mountains, moving upslope to summer pastures in the spring, downslope to winter ranges in the fall when blizzards beset the high Sierra.
They roamed between Olancha and Bridgeport, walking knife-edged ridges, dodging mountain lions and avalanches, sleeping under a thick blanket of snow when temperatures plummeted to 10 below.
By
George Shirk - Times News Editor
Mammoth Mountain, for six decades a ski racing nucleus, made another big—and fast—commitment to world class ski racing this week.
The home mountain of Ski Cross X Games Gold Medalist John Teller introduced Monday what it called “the nation’s premier Ski Cross junior program.”
“Mammoth is super excited to be essentially on the forefront [of ski cross] on the American side,” said the ski hill’s 36-year-old performance director, Pete Korfiatis, back in Mammoth after seven years coaching the U.S. Men’s Ski Team.
Whitmore Pool is a dump
November 16, 2012
In the frantic effort to keep the Whitmore Pool open for next summer, it has been easy to ignore the fact that the pool itself is a dump.
The best thing it has going for it is the 360-degree view, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with the pool itself. The view will stay there, and might even be improved once the unsightly tangle of the antiquated pool is removed.