Michael Chmilar’s Travels

April 21, 2007

The Getty Museum

Filed under: United States — Michael @ 4:06 pm

On Friday, I visited the Getty Museum. It is nice to go there on a weekday, when it is not too busy.

Here are some shots of the cactus garden:

Getty cactus garden, with city in background

Getty cactus garden closeup

Skiing at Mammoth Mountain

Filed under: United States — Michael @ 3:57 pm

I went up to Mammoth Mountain to ski for a couple of days. Mid-week skiing is nice, because the mountain is not crowded, and the motel rates are a little cheaper.

I was anticipating spring-skiing conditions, but ended up with a spring storm! Wednesday was very windy and cold, but sunny. Thursday, a storm rolled in and it was snowing from 11:00 onwards, gaining in intensity as the day wore on.

The skiing was not bad. You couldn’t go off of the groomed trails, because that was mostly frozen slush from warmer days.

I have a new pair of Lange boots, which I purchased at the end of the season, one year ago. I had only used them for one day after I bought them, so on this trip I was still learning to use them. My old San Marco TR3’s were very nice boots, but they were not well-matched to the new carving skis. My new boots offer much better feedback and control for the inside ski when carving. They are, however, even harder to put on, and much, much harder to take off! Once on they are very comfortable.

Here is an Eastern Sierra Nevada storm:

Eastern Sierra Nevada storm

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