Older sometimes means better on the slopes

MAMMOTH LAKES -- I’ve made maybe 20 ski trips in my 50 years.

I am not a serious skier.

So why am I hitching a ride to the summit of daunting Mammoth Mountain, where ominous black diamonds warn of peril for those not suitably skilled?

Because it’s there, of course.

But also because I’ve a score to settle with the notorious Cornice Bowl and, having recently turned 50, perhaps I’ve something to prove to myself as well.

It was during the 1970s that I first experimented with gravity as it pertains to 160 pounds of bumbling novice affixed to long, cumbersome planks and coaxed off a ledge leading to a vertical field of moguls.

The result was both frightening (to me) and entertaining (to my friends) as I resembled one of those old cartoon characters who careens downward hand over foot until becoming part of a giant snowball.

I only pretended to be a skier. I wanted to be with my friends, regardless of their expertise, honed since early childhood during family ski trips.

My family vacationed at the beach, and Cornice that day, its face hollowed by gales and with snow fluttering above its arched lip, resembled a monstrous white wave threatening to obliterate all of Mammoth.

It was an epic wipeout waiting to happen.

Not this time, I hope . . .

Groomers spent the night “rolling out 900 acres of corduroy on 91 runs,” according to the report.

I vaguely recall such terms while fondly remembering wearing corduroy bellbottoms back when I pretended to be a skier.

Grooming was sparse. These days they rake almost every slope. Cornice looks to have been tamed. Gone is that menacing lip, and most of its kidney-jarring moguls.

I’ve rented K2 Apache Crossfire skis with wide tips and tails, and they’re like a magic carpet compared to the bulky purple Heads I once owned.

I negotiate Broadway with surprising ease, and a woman remarks that anyone can look good on this finely-groomed “ego snow.”

Whatever.

I carve turns down Stump Alley, then hop on Gold Rush Express, a four-passenger conveyor to expert terrain beyond mid-mountain.

Chair lifts are like freeways. They have to be expanded to accommodate increasing traffic. Doubles were once the standard, but they’ve been replaced by faster three-, four- and even six-passenger lifts.

And still there are long lines.

We can thank snowboarders, of course. Resorts nowadays are overrun by this younger, baggier element. At Mammoth the ratio is still 60-40 in favor of skiers, marketing director Joani Lynch says, but the gap is closing.

And what’s with the helmets? Almost everyone I see, as I make like “the Hermanator” down Solitude, is wearing one.

And to the forefront of my mind leaps the many instances my unprotected melon -- nobody wore helmets in the ‘70s -- spilled red onto these very slopes.

I complete two runs down the Face of Five, reachable via Chair 5, a favorite among my high-school pals, and realize I’m skiing better than ever. I’d tip my helmet to this revolutionary ski technology, if I were wearing one.

Back on the lift a snowboarder points to the ledge forming atop Dave’s Run and tells me, “You’ve got to try that -- it’s insane,” and I tell him I tried it before he was born, and it was an insanely ugly experiment.

I zoom down Quicksilver en route to remote Chair 9, recently upgraded from a snail-like double to a six-pack, renamed Cloud Nine Express and now capable of transporting more than 2,400 people an hour.

It’s all about maximizing riding time, but what happened to rest time?

Indeed, after skiing back to Chair 5, then working downward to mid-mountain McCoy Station, I order lunch and am ambushed by fatigue.

Legs tighten. Boots fill with cement. A pang shoots through my chest as I balance my tray and I hope it’s just a muscle.

Cornice beams in the sunlight. I need to get up there while there’s still some life in my legs, so I abandon the long gondola line and ski to Chair 23 which, eerily, accepts me as might a conveyor to heaven’s door.

(What is it about turning 50 that makes one think such thoughts?)

But the cool, crisp air atop the mountain, at 11,000 feet, has rejuvenated my spirit, and I try but cannot put that decades-old fall from grace behind me.

There was that portentous ledge. We stood 12 feet above Cornice’s sheer and crusty face. An icy wind gnawed at our faces.

My friends, seemingly undaunted, leaped as though from a curb to the street, one after another, and snaked artfully downward without mishap.

I stood alone. The lift and run were now closed. A patrolman, clearing the summit, tried convincing me to ride the gondola back down, so I jumped.

Upon landing, I turned sharply to the left and grated to a stop. Phase One accomplished!

But soon after pointing downhill I crossed tips and tumbled for what seemed an eternity, then slid like a lifeless sack over 100 feet of moguls, and ultimately stopped at the feet of my companions.

This time will be different. No ledge. No stinging wind. No moguls. Nothing but a sheer expanse of ego snow. I wait only seconds, then push with my poles.

The result? Let’s just say my run, while not very artful, was not reminiscent of any cartoons.

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