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This weeks. Life Note, the story and the inspiration of the Real Life chair 17.

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Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17,

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a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,

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wisdoms and inspirations as we navigate life's journey,

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post chas to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life journey.

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As well as those of special guests, contributors tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned wisdoms,

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gained experiences, had and inspirations shared.

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Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe.

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So you never miss an episode. Now,

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enjoy this week's episode. All righty.

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Welcome back in friends to another episode of the Life Notes from Chair 17.

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I'm your host. Ch Thank you as always once again for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe returning c 17 years.

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Thank you so much for your continued support and tuning in each week.

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And if you are a new listener,

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welcome in, you have either found us on a major podcast platform or maybe via our website out on life notes from chair 17 podcast.com.

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And we appreciate you being here. Hope you like what you hear and you want to stick around,

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continue to check us out. Uh,

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and this episode is a special one.

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So it's a good one if you are listening in for the first time.

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A quick thank you though. I will say to folks who enjoyed our previous episode,

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we the jury. Uh, it was fun to record and I'm glad that it has made a few of you smile brought back some memories of juries on which you have served and that some of the analogies that I made in that episode.

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Are you, you feel it quite,

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quite truly? So I do appreciate it.

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It was an unexpected episode, but I'm glad that it turned out to be entertaining for those of you that checked out uh the episode.

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So this episode is a milestone episode for us by the sheer number that it is.

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So it is our 17th episode and obviously the name of this podcast is called Life Notes from Chair 17.

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Now we've had a couple of episodes that I consider more important or special episodes.

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One being the fifth episode,

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which was inspired by Taylor Swift who often uses uh the fifth track on her album for something particularly revealing or emotional.

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Uh And we talked about our inspiration for one of our most favorite life mantras,

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which if you have not listened to it, it is strength,

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confidence, courage. Our first episode was obviously a big one and a special one.

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Since it started this journey. We did brief encounters to pay tribute to our dear friend Trudy who passed away in the fall.

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But for this 17th episode,

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it was definitely one that I had eyed for a bit given it seemed very fitting to actually use it to tell the full story of the real live chair.

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17 that inspired the name of this podcast.

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We've also had folks ask about that to get a little bit more of.

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So what's up with, what is the chair?

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And I have alluded to it in previous episodes and out on our website in the about section.

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But I've done so from a much more generalized sense of what I feel,

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the experience of writing up a mountainside chairlift does and how it creates this little moment in time to swap a story or two with either people that,

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you know, or people that you don't. But if we are stripping it all the way down at its core for this inspiration in the naming of this podcast chair,

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17 was and still is my most favorite chairlift at my most favorite mountain I have ever skied or snowboarded.

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And that is Mammoth Mountain in Mammoth Lakes,

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California. It is also the very first true we'll call it big chairlift.

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I rode when I was a very young grom of a skier and just to clarify,

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I did not grow up in Mammoth Lakes.

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Uh Many a snow sport athlete call Mammoth Lakes home.

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It is known for hosting many a snow sport competition for those that may not know or,

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or are more familiar with the Tahoe area.

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Uh, it sits about three hours south of Lake Tahoe,

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California, which is another a major winter destination for a lot of people,

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but in particular, I would call it NorCal or potentially Bay Area Californians because generally speaking,

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the logistics of getting to Tahoe from Southern California versus the logistics of getting to Mammoth from Southern California are quite different.

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So, uh you can get to Mammoth from,

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let's say, if you think maybe the Los Angeles area southward general sense uh in one day,

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uh that would be a really long haul to do to get to Tahoe.

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Now there is crossover and it's not an absolute rule.

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Uh but the drive from the Bay Area to Tahoe is sort of the equivalent.

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Yeah, roughly it's actually shorter. It can be shorter,

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but it is the destination, I would say for folks that hail from more northern California and mammoth tends to be the destination for a lot of us that are hailing from Southern California and it can be done in,

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let's just call it a little over half a day.

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So it depends truly on how fast you drive,

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how many stops you make. Uh I used to make the drive to Mammoth and probably six hours or so and just to give people even more perspective,

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uh There are folks who do actually wake up at two o'clock in the morning,

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they drive to Mammoth to be in time for the mountain to open at eight o'clock.

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They will ski or board all day,

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probably leaving around four and then they will drive back home to parts of southern California.

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I never did that and I always marveled at people who did.

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Uh, but that is almost,

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I would say not, let's call it impossible,

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but let's say highly improbable to ever accomplish if you're a Southern California and trying to get to Tahoe.

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So that sets the scene a little bit logistically for if you're familiar with this area,

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maybe you've heard of Lake Tahoe more than Mammoth.

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Uh and kind of how Mammoth and Lake Tahoe sort of serve the different uh populations um in,

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in a different capacity. It's just based on how easy it is to get to them,

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depending on where you live and growing up in Southern California.

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Really, you have two choices if you are a winter sports person and you do want to get somewhere quick within the day by car,

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you can either stay local and head up to Big Bear or snow summit or mountain high or you can drive to Mammoth to get the big mountain experience,

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which Mammoth is uh because it is nestled very high in the Sierra Nevada.

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So the town of Mammoth Lakes,

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its elevation is around 7800 ft and the lodges start even higher.

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Up than that. I believe Canyon Lodge starts at somewhere in the eights.

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I can leave uh specifics in the show notes just to make sure that I am not speaking out of turn.

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So you are quite high and you are getting quite the big mountain experience.

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And it is something that is a very fond and favorite childhood memory because I did grow up with a dad who skied and he was an excellent skier even to this day,

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he's well into his seventies and he is and can still ski.

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Although I don't know that he's done it recently, but he did the whole travel around be a ski bum thing for a season or two.

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And so no surprise when I got to be about five or six,

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We started to head up to Mammoth to begin the journey of me becoming a skier.

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And it is true that I actually never skied locally.

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I never went to Big Bear Snow Summit Mountain,

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Ohio. I did that actually when I transitioned many years later and learned to snowboard.

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Uh but I didn't do it when I was learning to ski.

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We would always go to Mammoth and it's a fun fact to my dad recounts the story.

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So I, I'm going to give him a shout out.

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Hey, dad, I know you're listening. I don't know that I can verify this story,

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but I can tell you that Mammoth sits very high in the series And so as my dad tells it to me,

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Dave mccoy who founded Mammoth was told there was no way that you could actually put a ski resort that high up in that remote of a location because it would be,

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it would get too much snow, it would be too hard to get to.

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No one would want to track up there. It would be too hard to manage.

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Uh, and obviously that was none further than the truth because it has become what it has become.

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And back in the day, my dad along with uh some of the folks that he worked with decided in the very early days of Mammoth Mountain to purchase a condo.

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And I need for everyone to picture the quintessential 19 seventies gay bomb condo with fire orange shag carpeting,

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no television, a dart board really for entertainment,

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random sets of furniture that didn't match random sets of glassware and dishes that didn't match.

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Ok. A true, true ski bum condo and absolutely not the present day luxury resort village at Mammoth Condo,

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timeshare situation. So we had a place to stay in what had become a,

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a popular destination for,

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let's call it those of those who knew it was there,

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the locals that knew it was there. And at the beginning of when it was starting up right within the first,

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you know, decade of its time or so,

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and it still is one of the best mountains in the us in which to ski.

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If you ever get a chance to go and you are a skier or snowboarder.

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I highly recommend it. Uh, we would often go twice a year,

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uh, during the holiday break and during spring break,

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sometimes we'd go for summer. Uh,

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but more often than not, that was our winter destination.

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And I started out as a little skier out of warming Hut Two.

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For those of you who might know or for us oldies that still call it hut two,

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it's now actually called Canyon Lodge.

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I was in lessons on what I'm not even going to call a hill,

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but probably more of a mound. And I clearly remember,

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you know, at five or six years old or however old,

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I was very, very little off in the distance which really now is a short walk out the front door.

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But when you're little, it feels as if it's way over there and it's this mystical land of these giant chairlifts that seemingly take people up the mountain and they just disappear into,

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you know, places unknown. And I do remember,

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I would watch people also come down the runs that dump them back out at,

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you know, the, the chairlift and at the lodge.

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And I, I would sit there and I would feel sort of stuck on the side of this mound next to the lodge on this weird tow rope thing.

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That was just awkward, fun fact,

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this predating magic carpets where you just step,

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it, step on it and it's like a little escalator and it just kind of takes you up the hill.

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Yeah. No. Mm. Mm. Didn't have that had to do this weird tow rope thing.

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That kind of, sort of, you had to sit halfway on,

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might have fallen off. Who knows?

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And I just remember going, when do I get to go on those big chairlifts over there?

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Because they look way more fun than this.

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So we fast forward a bit as I got more and more.

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Well as I progressed more and more with my lessons,

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but also I, I really started to bug my parents because I was getting bored with the lessons that I,

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I wanted out of them.

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A and B I wanted to go with them or with their friends out into the great yonder of the big mountain.

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And so chair 17 was the first chair that I ever rode.

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And if you are familiar with the layout of Canyon Lodge or hut to there are really only three chairs you can pretty much walk to out of the lodge and get on to start your day.

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8, 16 and 17. And this was the era of time when chairs went by their numbers.

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They didn't really go by what are now more descriptive names.

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So present day chair 17 is called Schoolyard Express and I think 16 has been renamed Canyon Express.

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Um But for me back in the day,

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they were just their numbers and in the case of chair 17,

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because it's actually closer than the other beginner chair,

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which is chair seven. Uh,

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it's an easily accessible one that ski schools can meander over to when they are ready to start taking the classes up on a chair or you as a skier or boarder starting your day can meander over to.

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Now. It's been a while since I've been there,

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but I still feel that chair 17 has the reputation of being a very good starter chair.

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Not only if you are just learning,

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but if you are going to actually warm up,

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right. So you can make laps on it all day as a beginner or you can take it up and work your way over to a different chair or you can make some warm up laps before you decide to continue on up the mountain.

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It's a great place to sort of gather and start.

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And so for me from the get go as a little grom of the skier watching these big chair lifts and wondering when I was going to get my shot at one.

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That was how I first came to connect to chair 17.

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It was the first, the first real one, the first big chairlift.

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It was the first true run I ever took scared to death.

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Little grom than I was because those of you who are skiers or boarders,

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you absolutely. Know the terror of first learning to get on and off a chairlift.

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And we have to remember this was a time before what we now have as high speed chairs that kindly slow way down for you basically moving at almost a crawl so that you can get on and off them gently.

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Nope, for me, this was the old school days of double and triple chairs.

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Chair 17 being a triple chair that came speeding around the load and unload zones and you had to be set and ready to get on or off.

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And if not plunk,

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uh part of me is proud I learned on the old school chairs,

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but part of me does wish I could have learned on a present day high speed chair because it would have probably removed the PTSD.

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I developed as a young gram skier and probably uh that would help a lot of us who had to learn back then.

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But I digress and chair 17 still today.

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If I'm thinking about it in memory,

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it has a very gentle grade.

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It has wide open runs which again are perfect for beginners are perfect for warm ups.

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And I know that every skier and boarder can and does have some sort of starter routine.

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You sort of have to, you have to warm up your legs or you have to get some turns in before you go off on your day.

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And so as I progressed, and as I became a better skier and as the years went on it still,

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every time I went to Mammoth was chair 17.

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Started the day on it, got my feet set on,

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it, trusted myself on it.

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But more than starting it or starting the day on it,

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I always ended my day on it as well.

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It always led me back home. And if I had had a particularly rough day on the mountain where let's say higher up,

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I was just getting my rear end kicked. Uh,

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usually by chair three face going down the face of chair three,

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I'd come back down to chair 17,

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sort of lick my wounds and finish on a good note on a confidence builder.

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And I always felt like the chair was saying to me,

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you got this come back tomorrow, it'll be fine.

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And I really can't tell you how important those end runs were.

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The ones were, you had no legs left and you really needed to shift into autopilot and just get down the mountain.

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So it's one thing to have your mo you have your day,

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you're kind of getting your butt kicked higher up the mountain.

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You come back down to have some confidence building runs.

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But let's say you're having a great day higher up on the mountain and you now realize you've got to get back down and you don't have any legs left.

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I really needed to click into autopilot to just get me back down,

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make sure I didn't crash at the end of the day or something,

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have some sort of accident because oftentimes when you're tired,

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that's when you make a mistake and you can catch an edge and fall and possibly hurt yourself.

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And chair 17, still in that context was always to the rescue.

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It was truly this place of comfort or of guidance of starting a new day or ending a new day.

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And so when thinking about how to create a unique title for a podcast,

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which in case you ever wanted to know is important,

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I started to really think about the things in my life that symbolized good memories and good stories and a place to tell those stories.

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Even to people, I didn't know the idea of making conversation or remaining contemplative in thought.

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And instantly without question,

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chair 17 came to mind and the exercise that every single skier or every single boarder goes through when they sit down on a chair lift to take a ride up the mountain.

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If you are spending a day with a friend or your family,

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you might talk through how your last run was or where you were headed next or the plan for the rest of the day.

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What time is lunch? Or you might actually be talking about the drama or the latest of the latest that is going on in your life.

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If like me, as I got older,

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I was adventuring alone. Or I was actually uh skiing or boarding alone.

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It could make for a small conversation with someone you didn't know,

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but of which you found you might have had a shared experience with or a funny story to tell you maybe realize that you're from the same hometown and you've been coming to the mountain for the same number of years or that person has been,

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been coming to the mountain for many years more than you and has insights that you didn't even know about.

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Or you learn that that stranger is actually let's say visiting from Italy and they've traveled a very long way to ski this particular mountain that you have been on since you were a kid and you swap stories about it and help them,

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maybe think about where to check out this kind of run or this kind of chair.

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But truly, it was always the quiet rides where no words were spoken.

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That could be the most reflective for me given we know that being out in nature and particularly high up in the mountains can offer moments of healing of clarity or a refreshed outlook on that moment in time.

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And so for me, those chairlift rides were always the best gift,

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time to think. Time, to be grateful,

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time to process time, to be inspired,

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time to just be.

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But I will be honest and say sometimes I really just did stare down at all the skiers and boarders coming down the run watching them,

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especially the really graceful ones and think,

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well, I hope I sort of resemble that.

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And if I extrapolate on that, the goal of this podcast is the same,

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a place of good conversation,

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a place perhaps of comfort swapping of stories,

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perhaps moments of reflection, perhaps a laugh,

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perhaps a shared experience and the hope we have really that other folks are tuning in or in the vision of the chair list watching us and going,

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hey, you know what I want to listen to that,

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you can start your day with us, you can end our day with us or come back to us whenever you feel like it because we'll be here truly in the spirit of chair 17.

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And so that is the story in its entirety.

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Uh with some interesting anecdotes for those of you who are skier on board,

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you probably can relate for those of you that don't.

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This is how you take a chairlift and put it in to the name of your podcast.

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And as a creator, you often times do,

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at least for me, I do like to really be thoughtful about what I name things,

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whether it's a short story or a character or something.

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And it usually has to have a personal meaning and one that resonates not only with me but is potentially curious or interesting to those who might see it out there in the world.

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And so live notes from J 17 was born.

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Let me know if you have an inspiring story of a place that you go that has served as inspiration for something that you've done or you've created.

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I'd love to know as always be kind to yourself.

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Take it one hour at a time, one day at a time and we will see you next time.

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Thank you for tuning in to another episode of life notes from chair 17.

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Remember to follow and subscribe. So you never miss an episode.

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We'll see you next time.