Canyon Lodge — Attraction in Mammoth Lakes

On 12/24/2016 I had a group lesson for skiing. The instructor wasn't that much patient with us. He expected that everyone should learn in a few minutes. This is while we were all beginner. I left the group for about 30 minutes to take some water and go to bathroom and take some rest. After coming back, I started to repeat what he already told us to do but I wasn't able to do it perfectly. He came to me and said to me sarcastically that we are returned to the first 30 minutes of our lesson and left me after a minute. I ignored him and tried my best to come down the small slope for beginners and did it perfectly. He saw me but didn't say anything. No comment no nothing, while they usually should give you a nice comment as an encouragement. Another instructor who was standing by lifting area saw me that I was falling down from a lift just kept shouting instead of encouraging. The same day my second child had snowboarding lessons in a group. The instructor, Meghan (African-American), reverse to my instructor was very encouraging and nice to all of the kids in her group, told my kid also my husband that my child was the best in her group. She asked my child if he didn't have any snowboarding lessons before. My kid told her that the reason that he learned it fast was because he is almost a pro in skateboarding which helps you learn snowboarding faster. On 12/26/2016 my husband took him for practicing and playing snowboarding for fun and not lessons anymore since he already knew everything about it. While he was coming down a slope, all of a sudden one of the instructors, who was teaching a group came in his path and my kid really tried to stop but couldn't and hit him so that he fell down on my child and my kid felt a sharp pain in his rib and crying. Instead of making sure that he is okay he said to my kid that go and get a lesson while you don't know snowboarding and that I don't want to see you here again. He was scared of seeing that guy again, so when he went up with lifting asked a woman about another route to return down in the same lodge which was Canyon. It seemed that the woman didn't understand what he meant so she told him to take the red line bus. My poor kid did it and went to Main Lodge and stayed there by a gondola for about two hours , until my husband finally found him. The instructor ruined our holiday and we scared to death about finding our 11 years old. Some instructors in this location are not trained very well about how to be patient and talk nicely to the people. I will never ever come back to this place again. If I knew some instructors could be that much impatient, rude and irresponsible, I would have gone somewhere closer to my house not driving around seven hours and pay a lot of money to deal with bunch of discouraging instructors. Of course we can't ignore Cody who taught my first one skiing one on one on our last day of staying in Mammoth. Such nice guy both in manner and teaching. I still give the place a one star because of the guy who treated my younger child very badly and abusively and we were close to lose our kid because of him! Not forgiveable! They didn't even bother to return my call for at...

SHOUT OUT TO SANDY SEALE of the Host Department!! A woman with a golden heart, Mammoth's guardian angel.

I'd like to recognize Sandy Seale of the Host Department at Canyon Lodge for going above and beyond and showing the utmost compassion and generosity to my boyfriend, Armando and I during our time of need.

It was the end of our first day on the mountain and I was having trouble finding our ski-in/ski-out AirBnB at Timber Ridge Condos. This was his 1st time at Mammoth, his 2nd time snowboarding. I'm a beginner/intermediate rider. After multiple attempts of zooming down the path, I finally found the entrance to the return path, but lost the trail. We found ourselves in the woods with a beautiful blanket of fresh untouched snow. So we unstrapped and hiked around in knee deep snow, looking for our way. Armando laid his board down to take a break and off it went. He took off after it and I had a meltdown.

I couldn't find him for a while and being an Emergency Registered Nurse, my brain thought as he was falling through the trees/down BlueJay (black diamond) trail without a board or helmet, he knocked his head unconscious on a rock or tree with some bloody head trauma. He didn't want to wear a helmet because it was "uncomfortable." (SIGH...irresponsible noobies...)

Sandy was going down Blue Jay and found me in tears. She stopped to see what was going on and assessed the situation. We went down Blue Jay together, eventually found Armando at the base of Canyon Lodge - unharmed. But the runaway board was gone. Since she happened to work for the Host Department, she was telling me the policy of losing your ticket if you lose your board. The board could also have hurt someone too. She gave us a ride home. (We didn't have a car - we took the ski-out trail from our condo.)

Sandy had work the next morning. She advised me to check in with Lost & Found and ski patrol - no luck. She, Armando, and I spent the morning/afternoon looking around for his runaway board. Armando hiked through the area. I kept taking Chair 8 down to Blue Jay, then into the woody areas. I get a message from Sandy while I'm at the top of Chair 8. She found the board and took it to Lost & Found!!!

She didn't have to help us like that, but she did. I offered her ways to recognize her kindness and to show my gratitude, but all she wanted was for me to put in a good word for the Host Department.

Thank you for giving our story a happy...

This was a nice hotel with a good location near the gondola that gets you to the Mammoth ski lifts. However, it was expensive for the quality of facilities and I was disappointed by the staff.

The room was nice. Kitchen area, pull out couch, fireplace, small balcony, queen sized bed. Not a lot of floor space, but they do provide a humidifier and some games to play. Most of the games are missing disks or pieces, naturally.

My party stayed Friday-Sunday and was skiing Sunday until the afternoon. Of course we had to check out before then, so we asked the concierge for options of a place to leave our bags and a way for us to clean up before we leave. They sent a bellman up to retrieve our bags, tag them, and keep them until the afternoon when we were done skiing. The person who came up wasn't friendly and we are suspicious that he tried to steal one of our bags as it was missing when we got the rest of our bags back. It took the staff more than 30 minutes to find it, which made us think maybe they had to find the bellman and ask him what he did with it. They wanted us to leave without the bag and without compensating us for it, but we waited it out and they were in no hurry whatsoever to help us. We were disappointed with that particular experience.

On a related note, the shower area they recommended after we ski and after we no longer had our room was in the fitness center. There is one men's shower and one women's, and there are no towels, soap, or any other shower supplies that normally spa facilities provide.

The pool was not used due to being out of season, but there were two medium-sized hot tubs, which were nice. Certainly not like lodges you see in CO, which have pool-sized hot tubs.

Parking was nice. Underground and safe. The area around the hotel was nice too, walking distance to some restaurants and things to do. I would say the hotel itself is a bit run down, but still a nice place.

Overall, I would recommend checking another place out if you can find a good price on something with a similar proximity to the lifts. Location was the best aspect of this lodge,...