MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING by Jackson Hogen
[reproduced from SKI Magazine December, 2001]

In fact, Mammoth has already turbo-charged midweek business by slashing its season-pass price from a gaudy $1,100 to $399, with sales surging from 2,000 to an incredible 27,000. "Lowering the pass price was a boon to everything and everyone," Gregory observes. "It created a lot of happy people," not least of whom is the broadly beaming Gregory. "Dave McCoy always had a vision of this place as Anyman's Ski Resort, so the price shift and renewed emphasis on low-cost lodging at the mountain are just an extension of Dave's philosophy." Despite the nearly 1,250 percent increase in season-pass holders, this massive mountain still seems undercrowded, even on a holiday weekend.

While the town planners, the mountain and the ski world's premier resort developer have moved in symbiotic fusion toward a shared vision of Mammoth's future, their grand plans have not been without opposition. Andrea Mead Lawrence, 1952 Olympic gold medalist and environmental activist, successfully challenged the Mammoth Lakes redevelopment plan in court over a financing scheme that she decried for dipping into public funds for private benefit. The town had sought to finance redevelopment using a statute intended to revitalize inner-city neighborhoods, a ploy Lawrence characterizes as "grossly illegal."

That plan, Lawrence asserts with her customary candor, "would have bankrupted the rest of Mono County within 20 years." She cites a $6 million subsidy for the new gondola as an example of public money that would have served the developer's needs in the guise of public interest. Lawrence is no Pollyanna. She knows that development is inevitable, even desirable. "There's no question the town will change," she says. "With real-estate values going through the roof and business being up, town leaders can get stars in their eyes. In a company town, which is what we are, you don't hear from the rest of the people, which makes us somewhat of a town divided. We need to consider the community, not just the visitor.

"Mountains are huge resources, spiritually, as well as otherwise," she continues in a firm voice resonating with a lifetime's devotion to their conservation. "There's more to being in the mountains than just how much vertical you ski; mountains are so much more than just a playground with infrastructure. We want to see quality development, courtesy, respect and a reverence for these special areas."While it's possible to find thoughtful opponents against the perceived Vail-ification of Mammoth, the majority of locals are all for it. When Corty Lawrence, Andrea Mead Lawrence's son and a co-owner of Footloose, the town's preeminent ski shop, watched the demolition of his store's vestigial site at Minaret and Main to make way for the North Village, the sense of something lost was far outweighed by the realization of what will be gained. "We've been waiting for this renewal to take place for over a decade," he says. "What's good about this town will only get better."

When considered in light of Mammoth's partying past, the town's transformation is more a return to roots than an uprooting of traditional values. Mammoth will become younger, hipper, more vibrant and, at the same time, more livable. More like it was. More like it should be.