The accommodations are wonderful. You can choose from a cabins, condominiums, hotels, and motels, with nice restaurants, supermarkets, and fancy sport shops nearby. There are buses that take you from every street in town up to the slope, so there is no hassle to find parking. However, I still drive to the slope because walking with ski boots around town is not my favorite thing. The preferred parking is $15.

There are 23 ski lifts and three gondolas. One takes you from Village Center, which is a small town center with stores and residences, straight up to the slope; the second goes from main lodge up to McCoy Station; and the third one runs from McCoy station up to the peak, which is the only way to get to DAVE RUN, the famous run named after Dave McCoy. I really recommend eating at McCoy station. They have great food and good prices with a variety of foods to choose from.

I start at Little Eagle lodge. I love the run at chair 25, BACK FOR MORE, which is a nice blue run where I can practice my turns, speed, and so forth. Because the resort is very big, you find that it’s not that crowded on the Little Eagle side. I also like BRODWAY RUN at the main lodge.

DAVE RUN is a challenging run for beginner like me, but I really love it. Even thought it’s a black run, I can find the way down easily. On my first day, the snow was fresh. There were moguls on most of the runs, which again, I love. It makes skiing more challenging. The second day, they groomed most of the run, so it was smooth and turned icy at the end of the day.

So far, this is a good resort for every level of skier and snowboarder because you can find the longest and widest green runs for new beginners and a whole cliff with no trees and full of moguls for the experts. It is a nice place to take a weekend break and is a 5-hour drive from Southern California. I definitely will go back again.

The next day was spent at June Mountain, 15 miles north of Mammoth Lakes on I-395, to avoid the MLK weekend crowds that had descended upon the 11,503-foot mountain from southern California. June provided the usual attractions--powder snow on its north-facing slopes, family-style, low-key facilities, very friendly staff, even friendlier fellow skiers, more toned-down skiing, and the best cruiser runs available in the Sierra outside of Northstar-at-Tahoe. The final day was spent back at Mammoth, though we had a late start after an especially hearty breakfast of veggie omelettes at the hole-in-the-wall Good Life Cafe. Starting at 10am, we avoided the crowds by skiing mostly the middle, upper, and northern (farthest from town) parts of the mountain. The snow was not noticeably worse than Saturday, but the crowds kept us from enjoying the solitude that Mammoth normally provides on its advanced slopes. Nevertheless, the trip turned out great with the two of us leaving Sunday night to get a jump on the rest of the crowds driving back to SoCal on Monday. 9/10

Even when it appears to be busy at the lift lines, the trails are wide open. The crowds are considerate. It is a wonderful place to take the family.