Don’t dis Mammoth; it’s one of ours

I found your article on Big Sky/Moonlight Basin to be not only incomplete in many ways but also an unnecessary and uncalled-for hack job on Mammoth [“White Open Spaces,” Winter Holidays Special Issue, Dec. 10].

In order to sing the praises of Montana, why was it necessary to illustrate your point with graphs and statistics meant to degrade Mammoth? So Mammoth is not as big as these two combined resorts in Montana -- so what?

You were comparing apples to oranges. Mammoth is an easy five- to six-hour drive for most Southern Californians. You totally minimized the process of getting to Big Sky -- fight traffic to the airport, spend an hour or more checking in and waiting for your plane, and then hope that your connection in Salt Lake or Denver works out, because if it doesn’t, your easy “five hours” to Bozeman just turned into a nightmare.

Although there is no doubt that Big Sky/Moonlight Basin offer a spectacular mountain with fantastic snow -- snow that is the product of the extreme cold -- there are also many things lacking. The area is filled with huge, beautiful homes, but there is no town.

There are also no locals, because only the wealthy out-of-towners can afford the homes in the area. While my L.A. friends who have a home in Big Sky love it, and it is undoubtedly an uncrowded and amazing place, not everybody can spend the time, trouble and money to go to such a place.

BARBARA KUBARYCH

Del Mar

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AS an avid cross-country skier, I eagerly scanned “White Open Spaces” to locate information about trails at the locations mentioned in the articles. In addition to downhill skiing, the article mentioned tubing, snowboarding and dog sledding but nary a comment on cross-country opportunities.

It was a disservice to readers to leave cross-county skiing out of the article. It would also be nice to see an article on cross-county ski equipment.

JUDY VIA

Irvine