Mammoth in Pictures Day II

DAY II:

A bright and early morning for another day on the mountain. Our lift tickets were activated, and we were first in line every day at 8:30. Getting to the range consisted of driving our cars to the shuttle bus, which drove us to the base of the mountain. From there, we hopped on a chairlift that took us to a waiting chartered snowcat that drove us to the venue. Again, props to the race organizers.

At the top of the chair lift. "Just put your skis in the rack and hop in." Yeah, no big deal or anything right?

And just when you thought this place couldn't get any cooler, a PistenBully BBQ truck parks in the penalty lap. Seriously the best tasting pulled pork burritos on the planet. Throughout the day, alpine skiers and mighty-mites on the mountain would cruise up and watch the races.



Another bluebird sky, and a full day of officiating at the range. Before our "Elite" race on Sunday, the group of us visiting athletes worked as range officals helping the shooters stay happy and safe for the 6 Saturday races and 3 Sunday races before our final race. Yeah, that's right. We had 6 races in a day. Hundreds of racers. We got a ton of sun again, an I finally wasn't the only one burned enough to be made fun of by the waitresses in the village at dinner. From R to L: Casey Smith, Myself, and our new awesome Californian/Russian homeboy Dmiytry Yegoshin



L to R: Myself, Katrina Howe, and Mark Johnson getting some much needed time off our feet between races. Chairs provided by the super awesome BBQ PistenBully.

Mike Karch, the most fearless man in biathlon I have ever met. This guy is single-handedly responsible for this entire week. Impossible is not in his vocabulary, and if you were to say "I want to build a temporary world-class biathlon range halfway up a California ski resort at 9000 feet and have the largest biathlon race in the nation and have it attended by everyone from first-timers to seasoned U.S. Teamers, and then take it all down and do it again every year forever with sponsor donations and an army of volunteers", most everyone would say it could never be done. Well here he is, 6 years of successful annual events later and walking the course with blue dye writing awesome Tour de France-esqe motivation on the corduroy. Thanks Mike. You're the bomb.

One of the most gratifying races of the day was the sit-ski division sponsored by the Wounded Warrior Project. These guys rocked the mountain.



After another long day on the mountain, we were pooped. Once the races were over, we remodeled the range from 25 meters to 50 meters for the masters races on Sunday, and then skied down the mountain into town for the local biathlon shop expo, some chow, and bed.