Day 895 – Grayson’s Journey

Dear family and friends

Greetings again from Mammoth!

The weather today was beautiful – crisp in the morning and warm in the afternoon. The snow conditions in the morning are the best, but they have been surprisingly good in the afternoon – not too sticky, but a lot more work to ski through the slower snow.

Grayson had another exceptional day today. All morning was spent on intermediate and high intermediate runs with one exception – a black diamond! He successfully navigated Patrolmen's, a black diamond run with Zachery's constant coaching. Here is a picture of the happy team on Chair 2 immediately following that run. After this lift, we skied over to Chair 3 and went down the backside to Saddle Bowl, then down Broadway – certainly the longest run he has done since his injury. Quite a morning indeed!

In the afternoon we stayed off of Chair 3, but most of the runs were similar to the morning albeit with trickier conditions because of the softening snow. We skied with Brian, one of the other pros at Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra (DSES) and we had a fun afternoon – including another run down Patrolmen's! The kicker was when we got to the bottom of Broadway about 3:15 and were on our way over to the Gondola Building where DSES has its offices. We thought that Grayson was done since he had skied so much on such difficult runs today. As he passed Chair 11, he turned and jumped in line! His instructors followed him on to the lift. I had to put my skis back on! We took two runs down Sesame Street and even had Grayson follow me down one run. Grayson would have gone for more if he could have.

For those that are keeping track, Grayson took the following runs today – Beginner: Sesame Street; Intermediate: Stump Alley, Mambo, Broadway; High Intermediate: Saddle Bowl, Ralphies; Expert: Patrolmen's.

The learning and the physical conditioning from the continuous days skiing has really shown. Last weekend he was tiring easily and we had to make 2 to 3 stops for breaks on the way down Broadway. This is no longer the case. Now he will go down from the top of Chair 1 all the way to the bottom without a stop.

Tonight is our last night here on the mountain. What an extraordinary week it has been. What an honor and a thrill to be part of it.

Pax!

Brant