SEE YOU IN JUNE

The industrial-strength blasting of snow on the Sierra was relentless for more than a month. My back ached from shoveling and I hadn’t skied in a week because it had been snowing too much.

With winds over 150 mph at the summit and whiteout conditions, Mammoth Mountain was on a well-earned weather hold. The hazard level in even the most benign backcountry spots was pinned in the red. The forecast called for another week of intensive shoveling and the locals were starting to crack. But we’d heard the rumors—20 miles north on Highway 395, it was Game On. Chair 1 was spinning, the Face was open, and the lower sidecountry—1,500 vertical feet of well-spaced old growth at just the right angle—was stacked.

Christian Pondella, Bernie the snowcat driver, local guide Mark Shelp, Matt Schott, Frank the plumber, and I—all Mammoth locals—had been waiting for the snow to ease up so the highway patrol could re-open 395. We had to get out of Mammoth and go somewhere with less weather and wind, somewhere the goddamn lifts weren’t buried.

We needed June.

into the town of June Lakes in the winter. Tucked into the Eastern