There was a tragic, Dickensian quality to last year's season at Mammoth Mountain.
One that Rusty Gregory, the 53-year-old chairman and CEO of the huge eastern Sierra resort would in many ways prefer to forget. But he never will.
“It was truly the best of times and worst of times,” Gregory mused.
A former middle linebacker at the University of Washington, he began his career as a lift operator at Mammoth – which draws up to 1.5 million skiers and snowboarders a year.
“The snow was great and the revenue and visits were the best in the company's history,” he said. “But that will be forever tarnished in my mind by the death of three ski patrollers here on April 6. Talking about it even now brings tears to my eyes.”
Gregory, a native of Arcadia, said it was a “clear reminder that Mother Nature owns this mountain and we just rent it. This is not Disneyland.”
The patrollers who died were Walter Rosenthal, James Juarez and John “Scott” McAndrews. Juarez and McAndrews were attempting to fence off a fumerole – one of many volcanic vents on the mountain – when the snow caved in and they tumbled 20 feet into the toxic gas-filled vent. Rosenthal died after trying to reach the two men. Seven others were injured by the fumes.
That accident followed by two months the death of fellow Mammoth patroller Sara Johanna Carlsson, a native of Sweden who died in a backcountry avalanche in Blacksmith Canyon near Bridgeport. The eight-year member of the patrol was skiing with two fellow patrollers when she was swept into a stand of trees.
Her death occurred about the same time as a string of unprecedented fatalities. In less than a week, five skiers and snowboarders died on the resort's slopes. One was 16-year-old Benjamin Trees of Carmel Valley, who perished when he crashed after soaring off a jump in the South Park terrain park. Yet another skier perished at the resort within a week of Carlsson's death.
“It was all very difficult,” Gregory said. “The guest deaths were all unrelated and individual calamities involving jumping, rocks, trees and heart attacks.” But it was especially hard on members of the elite patrol, who are the first responders for all injuries on the mountain. They are trained to deal with fatalities, but losing four of their own in one season was crushing.
Gregory said he never felt as if there were a black cloud over Mammoth or some kind of jinx on the resort last year. Nor did Gregory ever wish he had gone to law school instead of coming up to Mammoth to try out the ski bum life for a season.
After all, he met his wife, Bonnie – his former lift boss – at Mammoth. They have raised two sons there. He would not live anywhere else, he said.
“I never questioned my choice of careers,” he said softly. “I think that is one of the things about the mountains. People who are called to live here know their place.
“The worse things got, the clearer my job got. And the patrol's, too. We all played our roles . . . ”
Gregory said he learned a lot of lessons from last season.
“But there was no individual 'aha' on how to make Mammoth safer or how to run it better,” he said. “What I was reminded of time and time again is how beautiful it is here – and yet how dangerous it can be.”
Looking forward, both in the short and long term, Gregory said he is optimistic about Mammoth's future.
“We had a slow start this season with snow, but winter has arrived and the forecast is good,” he said. “We are supposed to start getting dumped on.”
Gregory also said he is confident that Starwood Capital will improve upon the tradition of Mammoth founder Dave McCoy, now 91. Starwood paid McCoy $365 million in October 2005 for a controlling interest in the resort's 4,000 acres, 185 trails, nearly three dozen lifts, several lodges and more than a dozen retail stores and restaurants. Gregory retains 14 percent of the resort's shares.
“The idea is to do more of the same without degrading the experience up here,” he said. “There is a strong belief in the idea of taking what has been a great weekend resort for Southern California and sharing it with the world.
“That includes developing flagship hotels, new air service from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas and other things that won't change the personality of the resort. Mammoth has a big, exciting mountain and a funky atmosphere, which is something we definitely want to keep.”
Brian E. Clark can be reached via e-mail at sports@uniontrib.com
