Photo by Jim Budny
“My mission in life is to have fun, whether at work, with friends, or with my family,” says Miller. “I may wind up living in a shopping cart at the beach when I’m an old man,” he says.
“You’ll see me sleeping on a park bench with a big smile on my face. But don’t wake me up, because I’ll be a million miles away, replaying the good old days in my head.”
“Unless I get Alzheimer’s disease,” he continues, with true Murray Miller irreverence. “Then I probably won’t have any idea why it is I’m smiling.”
Although raised in Southern California, just half an hour from the ocean, Miller was lured to the mountains as a youth, first visiting the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada while in high school.
“I was blown away the first time I came to Mammoth,” says Miller. “The place stuck with me. It was big and beautiful—the opposite of all the things that bugged me about urban life.”
Soon after high school, Miller moved to the mountains of Northern Arizona, becoming an auto mechanic in Flagstaff. Still, Mammoth’s 11,000-foot crest, wide-open bowls and broad shoulders beckoned.
“Every Friday after work I’d jump in the car or on my motorcycle and drive nine to ten hours up to Mammoth for the weekend. I loved the place,” recalls Miller. After saving enough money, he moved to Bishop, Calif., with his girlfriend Tonya in 1986 and never looked back. One day, while fishing outside town, Miller ran into a Mammoth employee and learned of an opening in the mechanic’s shop.
“It was just one of those lucky things,” says Miller. “I’d worked as a Honda mechanic and raced motorcycles since I was a kid so I knew a lot about 2-stroke motors,” he says. Today, Miller still lives in Bishop with Tonya—now his wife—and six-year-old daughter Kim. At Mammoth, he and supervisor Mike Colbert oversee the health of 95 snowmobiles and, during summer months, 25 quad four-wheelers.
In addition to Miller’s mechanical skills, however, he is well-known around the resort for his sense of humor and a sense of adventure. At the urging of Penny McCoy, administrator of employee relations at Mammoth and daughter of founder Dave McCoy, Miller began writing a humorous column called “On the Verge” for Mammoth’s employee newsletter, Mountain Spirit. (The name of the column is taken from the nickname Dave McCoy’s grandson, David, gave Miller 10 years ago after watching his snowboard, motorcycle, and snowmobile stunts.)
“On the Verge” is a commentary on life at Mammoth, ranging from irreverent to insightful. Highlights each issue include ongoing segments such as the “Crash and Burn Haul O’ Fame,” “Rumor Control,” “Travel Tips,” “Deep Thoughts” and “Horrorscope.”
“One day I was riding up Chair 16 with Penny and David, goofing around as usual,” says Miller, “when it struck Penny I should write all my silliness down for her newsletter. She kept after me, so finally I did. Amazingly enough, people said they really enjoyed it.”
“There’s no one quite like Murray,” says Penny McCoy. “He’s very talented and very resourceful. What started as just a column has grown to his doing most of the inputting and the whole layout for the newsletter. He’s really become a jack of all trades and, though he’s great with snowmobiles, I see his future in communications.”
“Murray is the humor of Mammoth Mountain,” she adds. That humor is irrepressible, even in the mechanics shop, where Miller established the “Grinder of the Week” award to poke good-natured fun at other departments.
“Every department seems to have a snowmobile now,” says Miller, who has been factory-trained by Polaris at their headquarters in Minnesota. “Ski patrol, ski school, lift maintenance, snowmaking—you name it. With so many people using the machines, the sleds tend to get hammered some of the time. As a result, we have this meat grinder in the shop and each week we award the “Grinder of the Week” to whoever trashed one of the snowmobiles. Snowmakers are notoriously the worst.”
Dave McCoy, founder of Mammoth, philosophizes about Mammoth employees as though they were attending a prep school for life. “We figure that we owe something to the kids who come here to work. It’s an introduction to what life’s all about,” says McCoy. “We teach them all we can about working with people because people skills are one of the most important things to learn.”
If that’s the case, there has been no finer student than Miller. “In some respects he brings the common folks together,” says Penny McCoy. “He’s got a great way about him that anyone can share. He’s also very laid back—his wildness is in his adventures.”
Miller’s wildness on a snowmobile has led him towards Hollywood as a stunt actor. His credits include “Frost,” a feature drama/comedy from Warner Brothers, starring Michael Keaton and Kelly Preston. Set in Colorado, the children’s film is about a father who dies, then returns to life as a snowman at Christmas to help raise his son.
“I’m doing some of the snowboard and snowmobile stunts,” says Miller, who says that the production company totaled seven snowmobiles during filming.
Whether snowmobiling the backcountry or ripping down Mammoth’s gnarly chutes on his snowboard or, in the summer, motocross racing and mountain biking, Miller’s goal is to enjoy life. “I’m so lucky to live here with my family,” says Miller. “There’s lots of powder days and a great snowboard park. In summer, Mammoth maintains 60 miles of single track for mountain biking and has the best motocross track in the world. People here go full tilt. You can just show up and a friend’s probably already strapping it on.
“I’m never going to be rich in terms of money,” says Miller, “But when it comes to job, family, friends and all the good times, I’m a millionaire.”
