As Japan and the Pacific Rim region reel in the devastation from today's earthquake and subsequent tsunami, Travel Guard® North America will provide emergency travel and medical assistance services to all U.S. and Canadian travelers and their families affected by the disaster.
Travel Guard's services include emergency travel assistance such as flight rebooking, hotel booking, emergency cash coordination, message relay as well as emergency medical assistance including medical referrals and access to air ambulance and medical providers. Travelers and family members seeking these services for their traveling relatives can call Travel Guard's 24-hour World Service Center at 1.866.644.6811.
Our thoughts and prayers are with those whose lives have been devastated by today's tragic events. We have a number of Travel Guard customers who are affected by this natural disaster and we're diligently working to provide them the assistance they need. When major events like this occur, we believe it is our responsibility to extend our expertise to affected travelers and have already been able to assist callers with emergency assistance, flight rebooking and message delivery to family members.
Contact our 24/7 World Service Center or your Travel Guard sales representatives with any coverage or assistance services questions you may have. You can reach them at 1-800-826-1300 or 1-800-454-7107.
Tom Zavadsky
Executive Vice President
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( 3 / 3828 )Some of my most memorable outings have been the ones where I’ve hooked up with a local chapter of the Sierra Club or other outdoor conservation groups. I meet interesting people that often share fascinating information about he local wildlife, geology, plants history and current efforts to preserve or expand wilderness access. If your planning on doing some snowshoeing or cross country skiing during your stay in one of our Mammoth Rental By Owner Vacation Town Homes check out the local chapter of the Sierra club here. http://nevada.sierraclub.org/rolgroup/index.html You don’t have to be a member to join an outing just make sure the outing is within your physical limits.
From the Sierra Club Range of Light Group for Inyo and Mono Counties:
2010-2011 Winter Outings - 10:00 AM Thursdays and Sundays:
Thursday morning snow shoe and cross-country ski. Every Thursday starting January 6th and running through April. We will generally cover 3 to 5 miles and be out about 2 ½ hours, but are flexible depending on the strength and desires of the group. We concentrate on conditioning, technique, and learning about our local natural history and conservation issues. All skill levels welcome. We like to help beginners get started. Bring water, snack, ski equipment or snowshoes, sunscreen, sun glasses, hat, gloves, and layered clothing.
Sunday Ski and Snowshoe Tours. Every Sunday starting January 9th and running through April if the snow lasts. Last year we switched to Saturdays in May so watch your next Trails for details. We will generally cover 5 to 7 miles and are back about 3 PM. Intermediate or advanced beginner skill levels and endurance required. Snow shoeers must be able to keep up, but based on past experience this is usually not a problem, particularly up hill. Most of these trips will spend some or most of their time off groomed trails. If you are unsure of your abilities try a Thursday morning trip first. Dress in layered clothing and be prepared for changeable weather. Bring sunscreen, sunglasses, hat, gloves, lunch, water, and ski or snowshoe equipment.
Both Thursday and Sunday trips will meet at 10:00 AM at the parking lot behind the Union Bank in Mammoth. There may be a secondary meeting area closer to the trailhead, so check your ROL e-mail newsletter, the ROL website or call a leader. Most track or touring cross-country skis will do fine, but wax less pattern skis seem to be easiest. The new lightweight snowshoes are generally preferred. Rental equipment is available all over Mammoth if you can’t find the pine tar for those old boards. Abominable Weather Cancels. For more information contact John Walter (salt1143@gmail.com) (760-934-1767) or Jean Dillingham (760-648-7109) (jdill@qnet .com).
Consider joining the Sierra Club!
Since 1892, the Sierra Club has been working to protect communities, wild places, and the planet itself. We are the largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. And our founder, John Muir, appears on the back of the California quarter.
Contact us for condo and home rentals by owner @:
http://www.mammothrentalbyowner.com/index.html
http://www.lejena.com/
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( 3 / 4064 )Make it even more of a vacation and save the thrill of driving in the snow for carving lines on the mountain. If you fly in on Alaska Airlines you don't need to rent a car with the terrific public transportation we have up here. Here's the scoop from the Mammoth Lakes Chamber of Commerce.
2010-11 Winter Transit
Welcome Aboard!
The Mammoth Transit System winter service (November 20, 2010 through May 30, 2011) offers a convenient, fun, and friendly alternative to getting around Mammoth. Passengers ride for free on all fixed routes in Town. The Dial-A-Ride service requires a fare and is available to all riders, with priority given to special needs passengers. Whether for work or play, we have a ride for you!
Mammoth Area Shuttle
Red Line: Main Lodge to The Village and Snowcreek Athletic Club seven days a week between 7:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. with stops every 15 minutes. The last bus departs the Main Lodge at 5:30 p.m. Service begins Nov. 20, 2010
Blue Line: The Village to Canyon Lodge shuttle services Canyon Boulevard and Lakeview Boulevard with stops every 15 minutes between 7:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The last bus leaves The Village at 5:30 p.m. Service begins Nov. 24, 2010.
Yellow Line: The Village to Eagle Lodge shuttle services Lake Mary Road, Kelley Road, Majestic Pines Drive, and upper Meridian Boulevard with stops every 15 minutes between 7:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The last bus leaves The Village at 5:30 p.m. Service begins Nov. 24, 2010.
Green Line: The Vons to Eagle Lodge shuttle services Meridian Boulevard, portions of Old Mammoth Road, and Sierra Nevada and Azimuth Roads with stops every 15 minutes between 7:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. The last bus leaves Vons at 5:30 p.m. Service begins Nov. 24, 2010.
Orange Line: The Village to Tamarack shuttle services guests staying at Tamarack Lodge along with Nordic enthusiasts enjoying the Lakes Basin. The bus operates every 60 minutes between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. The last bus leaves 30 minutes past the hour and from Tamarack on the hour. The last bus leaves The Village at 5:30 p.m. Service begins Nov. 24, 2010.
Mid-Town Lift
The Mid-Town Lift (purple line) bus operates seven days a week 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with stops every 30 minutes. This route runs from Vons to the Village with stops by Mammoth Hospital, Mammoth Lakes Library, Mammoth Mountain RV Park, and Mammoth Visitors Center.
Old Mammoth Lift
The Old Mammoth Lift (gray line) bus operates seven days a week 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with stops every 30 minutes. This route originates at Vons and serves the Mammoth College Campus, Mammoth Hospital, Mammoth Lakes Library, and terminates in Old Mammoth at Red Fir Road.
After Hour Services
Night Trolley
The distinctive red and green Town Trolley (dashed red line) operates seven nights a week from 5:45 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. with stops every 20 minutes. Service from Canyon Lodge to The Village then along Main Street and Old Mammoth Road with the route terminating at Snowcreek Athletic Club. The last Trolley departs The Village / Snowcreek Athletic Club at 1:40 a.m. Service begins Nov. 20, 2010.
Evening Hospitality Shuttle
Shop and dine in the evening and ride the complimentary evening Hospitality Shuttle, designated as the green dashed line. The evening Hospitality Shuttle operates seven nights a week from 6:00 p.m. to midnight departing The Village at Red Line Stop 18 to the Mammoth Mountain Inn on the hour. The Hospitality Shuttle departs Mammoth Mountain Inn 15 minutes past the hour, Grand Sierra Lodge & Village/Canyon Blvd., at the bottom of the hour, Juniper Springs Resort at 40 minutes past the hour, and Vons (Old Mammoth Rd. & Meridian Blvd. Stop #9) 50 minutes past the hour. Service begins Nov. 24, 2010.
Transit Information
Contact Information
Eastern Sierra Transit Authority (ESTA): (760) 924-3184
Mammoth Area Shuttle (MAS): (760) 934-2571 ext. 9238
Dogs
Leashed and muzzled dogs are allowed on the Trolley, Mid-Town and Old Mammoth LIFTs, Dial-a-Ride and CREST Services. Dogs are not allowed on Mammoth Area Shuttles.
All routes, times and days of operation are subject to change.
NOTE – EARLY AND LATE SEASON SERVICE: Commencement and termination of winter transit service is dependent on Mammoth Mountain's winter operations.
Here's a link to the Winter Transit Map @ www.visitmammoth.com
http://www.visitmammoth.com/docs/Mammot ... it2011.pdf
Local Taxi's:
Mammoth Cab: 760-924-2227
Mammoth Shuttle: 760-934-6588 (Out of area only)
Mammoth Taxi: 760-924-8294 or 760-934-8294
Airport / Backpacker / Hiker shuttles:760-937-8294
(Reservations required)
For great Spring deals on vacation rentals by owners sign up for our email list or follow us on facebook or twitter @ http://www.mammothrentalbyowner.com
and for rentals by owner in other fun vacation destinations check us out on http://www.lejena.com/
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( 3 / 7562 )We Are
Human scale, sustainable, efficient, responsible, empowering, good for the local economy, good for entrepreneurs, good for folks that want to vacation in Mammoth in a financially responsible way, ie: not overspend their vacation budget.
What makes us all these things? We are a group of local business that have come together to support you in your time for relaxation and adventure in the Mammoth Lakes area. What we are not is a large tons of money at the top and a pittance at the bottom corporate hotel model with stock holders and CEO’s CFO’S, CMO’s Board of directors, President, Vice President, Senior Manager’s, Mid-Level Managers, Junior Manager’s, Manager’s in training and minimum wage employees. Although some weeks if we look at the hours we put in we’re probably pushing minimum wage:) but we try not to think about that because we love doing this!
Our local service is made up of a few small businesses devoted to the condominium for rent by owner business model. We partner with a family owned home and condominium repair and maintenance company. The independent cleaning service is locally owned and then there’s us with our family owned business with mom’s and daughters taking the calls, coordinating reservations and business relationships with the vendors and the condominium owners. The website is managed by an individual web guru. All of the condominiums are owned by individuals and families and is often intended to be a retirement plan or safety net.
All independent businesses and owner’s are responsible each day to create and sustain a level of service that you the customer and our interdependent businesses have agreed we want. That is the bottom line for a business, we have to be offering something people want the way they want it.
You the customer are also an integral partner in this model and it is your feed-back that is part of the formula that informs us about changes and the evolution of the condominium for rent by owner vacation experience. All this is not so new by the way, this is how all the inns and home stays have been for thousands of years, for rent by owner. It offers a more personal experience, a little more connection with individuals rather than juggernaut corporations. The personal touches a condominium is imbued with by the owners is actually better for our minds. (Just a feeling I have when staying in for rent by owner vacation homes and I don’t have any scientific studies to back it up, but we do also here that from vacationers fairly often). I also believe that the condominiums because they are someones home away from home give you a connection to real people and thus you give more care and respect to your temporary vacation home. It is actually good for our hearts to care for people and their things. You go home much more relaxed knowing you took good care during your stay than if you didn’t. That is really the bottom line of why we enjoy doing this, we get to care for people by helping them enjoy the adventure, peace, tranquility, relaxation and affordability that comes with staying in a warm home and supporting small sustainable family businesses.
And check out our new website http://www.lejena.com/ offering condo and vacation home rentals by owner in other locations around the world.
Click here to return to http://www.mammothrentalbyowner.com
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( 3 / 7798 )Snow
Snow, we’ve got a lot of it up here at Mammoth Mountain and Lakes area and a few names for it as well. You may have heard that the Eskimo-Aleut languages have hundreds or more names for snow, sorry to say its an urban legend. English has as many or more and the total is under twenty. The Eskimo-Aleut speech takes all the attributes of a sentence about snow and make it all one word. Such as “Blowing snow piling up around my igloo and burying my seal skins” becomes one word. And one we have the Inuit do not have is extraterrestrial snow, yes snow has been observed on other planets!
Snow has acoustic properties for sound dampening and something I never thought of is being underwater and hearing the sound of snow falling on the surface. It does have a sound! But not likely one that many of us will hear. Kinda scary and chilly to think about actually.
One of my favorite words for snow is watermelon snow. I first discovered this as a kiddo climbing Mt. Lassen, of course I had to eat it! Like the first people to discover it I thought it was from minerals leaching out of the mountain but it’s actually a form of green algae.
Here are some names for Shapes of snow and names for snow on the ground that I found on Wikipedia from the American Meteorological Society.
Columns
A class of snowflakes that is shaped like a six sided column. One of the 4 classes of snowflakes.
Dendrites
A class of snowflakes that has 6 points, making it somewhat star shaped. The classic snowflake shape. One of the 4 classes of snowflakes.
Graupel
Precipitation formed when freezing fog condenses on a snowflake, forming a ball of rime ice. Also known as snow pellets.
Ground blizzard
Occurs when a strong wind drives already fallen snow to create drifts and whiteouts.
Lake-effect snow
Produced when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, picking up water vapor which freezes and is deposited on the lake's shores.
Needles
A class of snowflakes that are acicular in shape (their length is much longer than their diameter, like a needle). One of the 4 classes of snowflakes.
Rimed snow
Snowflakes that are partially or completely coated in tiny frozen water droplets called rime. Rime forms on a snowflake when it passes through a super-cooled cloud. One of the 4 classes of snowflakes.
Sleet
In Canada and Britain, rain mixed with snow; Some people refer to this as sleet, while others refer to sleet as ice pellets formed when snowflakes pass through a layer of warm air, partially or completely thaw, then refreeze upon passing through sufficiently cold air during further descent.
On the Ground
Artificial snow
Snow can be also manufactured using snow cannons, which actually create tiny granules more like soft hail (this is sometimes called "grits" by those in the southern U.S. for its likeness to the texture of the food). In recent years, snow cannons have been produced that create more natural-looking snow, but these machines are prohibitively expensive.
Blowing snow
Snow on ground that is being moved around by wind. See ground blizzard.
Chopped powder
Powder snow that has been cut up by previous skiers.
Corn
Coarse, granular wet snow. Most commonly used by skiers describing good spring snow. Corn is the result of diurnal cycle of melting and refreezing.
Cornice
An overhanging formation of windblown snow. Important in skiing and alpine climbing because the overhang can be unstable and hard to see from the leeward side.
Crud
This covers varieties of snow that all but advanced skiers find impassable. Subtypes are (a) windblown powder with irregularly shaped crust patches and ridges, (b) heavy tracked spring snow re-frozen to leave a deeply rutted surface strewn with loose blocks, (c) a deep layer of heavy snow saturated by rain (although this may go by another term). Crud is negotiated with an even weighting along the length of the skis, and smooth radius turns started, if necessary, with a pop or jump. When an advanced skier falls over on crud, it is probably because it is 'heavy crud.'
Crust
A layer of snow on the surface of the snowpack that is stronger than the snow below, which may be powder snow. Depending on their thickness and resulting strength, crusts can be termed "supportable", meaning that they will support the weight of a human, "breakable", meaning that they will not, or "zipper", meaning that a skier can break and ski through the crust. Crusts often result from partial melting of the snow surface by direct sunlight or warm air followed by re-freezing.
Depth hoar
Faceted snow crystals, usually poorly or completely unbonded (unsintered) to adjacent crystals, creating a weak zone in the snowpack. Depth hoar forms from metamorphism of the snowpack in response to a large temperature gradient between the warmer ground beneath the snowpack and the surface. The relatively high porosity (percentage of air space), relatively warm temperature (usually near freezing point), and unbonded weak snow in this layer can allow various organisms to live in it.
Finger drift
A narrow snow drift (30 cm to 1 metre in width) crossing a roadway. Several finger drifts in succession resemble the fingers of a hand.
Heavy crud
See 'Crud'.
Ice
Densely packed material formed from snow that doesn't contain air bubbles. Depending on the snow accumulation rate, the air temperature, and the weight of the snow in the upper layers, it can take snow a few hours or a few decades to form into ice.
Firn
Snow which has been lying for at least a year but which has not yet consolidated into glacier ice. It is granular.
Packed powder
The most common snow cover on ski slopes, consisting of powder snow that has lain on the ground long enough to become compressed, but is still loose.
Packing snow
Snow that is at or near the melting point, so that it can easily be packed into snowballs and thrown at other people or objects. This is perfect for snow fights and other winter fun, such as making a snowman, or a snow fort.
Penitentes
Tall blades of snow found at high altitudes.
Pillow drift
A snow drift crossing a roadway and usually 3 to 4.5 metres (10-15 feet) in width and 30 cm to 90 cm (1-3 feet) in depth.
Powder
Freshly fallen, uncompacted snow. The density and moisture content of powder snow can vary widely; snowfall in coastal regions and areas with higher humidity is usually heavier than a similar depth of snowfall in an arid or continental region. Light, dry (low moisture content, typically 4-7% water content) powder snow is prized by skiers and snowboarders. It is often found in the Rocky Mountains of North America and in most regions in Japan.
Slush
Snow which partially melts upon reaching the ground, to the point that it accumulates in puddles of partially-frozen water.
Snirt
Snow covered with dirt, which occurs most often in spring, in Prairie States like North Dakota, where strong winds pick up black topsoil from uncovered farm fields and blow it into nearby towns where the melt rate is slower. The phenomenon is almost magical; one goes to sleep with white snow outside and awakens to black snow. Also, snow that is dirty, often seen by the side of roads and parking lots near areas that have been plowed.
Snowdrift
Large piles of snow which occur near walls and curbs, as the wind tends to push the snow up toward the vertical surfaces.
Surface hoar
Faceted, corn-flake shaped snow crystals that are a type of frost that forms on the surface of the snow pack on cold, clear, calm nights. Subsequent snowfall can bury layers of surface hoar, incorporating them into the snowpack where they can form a weak layer. Sometimes referred to as hoar frost.
Watermelon snow
A reddish/pink-colored snow that smells like watermelons, and is caused by a red-colored green algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis.
Wind slab
A layer of relatively stiff, hard snow formed by deposition of wind blown snow on the leeward side of a ridge or other sheltered area. Wind slabs can form over weaker, softer freshly fallen powder snow, creating an avalanche hazard on steep slopes.
Here’s a link to many names for snow from other cultures and English.
I love the Italian name for snow; Neve which is also an English term for the upper part of a glacier.
http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/snow.htm
This is a fun link to all the different types of snow crystals.
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snow ... /class.htm
Now all you need to do is rent a condo by owner and see how many types of snow you can find up here. Bring a magnifying glass and take a close look at snow flakes while your at it!
http://www.mammothrentalbyowner.com/
And if you want to take a close look at different types of sand try http://www.lejena.com/
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