Last year we came to Mammoth in February and by coincidence found the WWRSA demo event viewtopic.php?t=11720 . Liz loved it, so this year we planned a Mammoth trip accordingly: https://www.wwsra.com/show-schedule/show-schedule.html .
With the far deeper snowpack we came for 3 days this time. Tuesday was the day before the demo, so we could check out conditions. The last storm dumped almost 4 feet and the end of January. Garry Klassen was here just after that but reported variable conditions, with softest snow near chairs 22 and 23 but some of the other upper runs packed very hard by the wind.
It’s now been 10+ days since the storm, first time this season the Sierra has gone a week without new snow. It’s also quite warm hitting upper 40’s Tuesday with clear skies and almost no wind. Fortunately it’s still February so only about ¼ of the mountain is melt/freezing much. Some areas like chair 5 were more mogulled than usual due to the traffic of the past 10 days.
Liz had a slow start setting up Mountain Collective so I took a few warm up runs on chairs 2 and 3. View of the upper mountain from Hangman’s to Drop Out with wide groomed Cornice in between.
Liz and I regrouped to ski a couple of runs on chair 5, and then moved to chair 22. First we skied Grizzly.
Liz did an encore while I skied Avy 1. It was now past 11 so we figured the south facing groomers would be in corn mode and thus cruised Back for More. Up 22 again I skied Avy 2 on the way to lunch at the Mill. We had lunch with Sierra Lady and Patrick from the slowly decaying Mammoth Forum. Mammoth Forum is no longer linked to the ski area website and is also closed to new entrants. Nonetheless enough locals and regulars still post to provide useful info periodically.
Patrick had formerly lived in SoCal, is now in St. Louis and was visiting with his friend Mike. Both are ski instructors at their local hill Hidden Valley. Liz and I skied with them after lunch. We went up to chair 23 and first skied Drop Out 3. Liz repeated that while we skied the Wipe Outs. Patrick and Mike are skiing below them here.
Then we headed off the back to 14. Some of the open terrain up high had softened, and when it got cruddy we traversed back to the wide open groomer. With the now deep 9-14 foot base there is more extensive grooming in 14 than I’ve seen for quite a while. While riding 14 we noticed that Dos Passos was navigable. I’ve only skied it 4-5 times so I suggested the others should take the opportunity. Liz and Patrick in the rocky middle section.
Due to wind exposure this section is often not passable even in some big years, but is worth doing when available for the open sections above and below.
Next time up 14 we climbed to the top of Monument/Scotty’s. Monument had the sofest snow of the day.
We skied to Main Lodge and took the gondola up. I had to check out Hangman’s for the first time in 3 years. It was smooth but extremely steep near the choke to I had to sideslip past that. The others went down Cornice and traversed over to meet me. Patrick skiing here with view up to Hangman’s at left and Varmint’s Nest upper right.
Varmint’s Nest fills in enough to be skiable maybe once a decade.
We made it to McCoy Station in time for last gondola. Despite the clear day, light was somewhat flat by the time we got to Dave’s Run at 3:30. Snow was good but I skied deliberately because I could only see clearly about 2 turns ahead. Patrick was not so lucky. He yard-saled and slid about 500 feet.
He attempted to self arrest but his aluminum pole was not up to the task.
Patrick was not injured but skied to the Mill and called it a day, as did Liz with her feet needing a break. Mike and I skied over to Main lodge via Andy’s Double Gold in the late afternoon sun, then back to chair 2 parking.
I finished with 26,500 vertical.
Wednesday we got up to the chair 10 parking by 8:30 for the demo. Being early we registered quickly, but I guess Liz has been around me too long :lol: as she forgot her Mammoth lift ticket and had to go back to the hotel to get it. She then parked at chair 4 to get on the mountain easily and skied over to the demo at chair 2. It was still warm but a bit breezy in a few places, notably riding chair 2. Thin clouds formed starting about noon and it was mostly overcast by 2PM.
Meanwhile at 8:45AM with the ongoing dry spell I figured to be looking for good carving skis. I started with the 177cm Volkl RTM84. These indeed filled the bill as I skied Broadway, Face of 3, then up top to Climax, a few moguls in Christmas Bowl and finally a cruise down Coyote and Comeback Trail.
Liz arrived within minutes and we went to Kastle. Kastle had a small selection, and also does not make separate women’s skis. But they had the FX95 HP in a range of lengths, including a 165cm which Liz took. They had one MX89. This is a stiffer, narrower ski which I suspected fit the morning conditions better. That ski was a 172cm, but they assured me that it was the right length for me and probably way too long for Liz. So I took the MX and both of us were very pleased. The MX like the Volkl really held an edge through the tail and was ideal for morning groomers like our first run on Broadway. I sent Liz to Face of 3 while I skied Gravy Chute, bumped up with chalky snow, where the firm grip and short length made an ideal combination. We then took the gondola and skied Dave’s Run, much easier than Tuesday in the morning sun.
Liz loved the FX95, so that says a lot about versatility in firm packed snow at that width underfoot.
New to the show this year was Black Crows. They are made in Chamonix and we have seen them In Utah and Japan, though this is the first season actively marketing in the US. Liz took the women’s Camox Birdie, 97mm underfoot and 165cm. Once again I went for a narrower, stiffer, more sidecut ski, the Orb 9.1 at 178cm. We skied Stump Alley, then went up Chair 23. I skied Drop Out 1 while Liz skied halfway down the Cornice befor moving into the ungroomed well below Drop Out 3. Liz’s skis were easy to turn but seemed to have an inconsistent grip on the groomers. St. Anton was a great carvable groomer for me but not so much for her. Liz requested an ungroomed route back to the base of 2, so we skied Rodger’s Ridge. This was nicely softened at noon by a morning of sun. Liz suspected the Birdie’s had a bad tune, and when we turned them in the rep inspected the skis and agreed.
Another new entry was Liberty, based in Colorado. Liz took the Envy 106 at 167cm and this time I took the counterpart men’s ski, Origin 106 at 182cm. We skied Stump Alley, then up 23. On the widest skis of the day we headed for Monument and Scotty’s, which had the softest snow.
That was where these skis were best. On groomers and firmer snow I’m generally less comfortable on this width, though on St. Anton I found that a slight upweighting motion smoothed out the turns. Part of this was the contrast from the 3 prior skis that were more designed to just tip on edge and carve aggressively.
Our final demos were from Armada, which was the only demo today that we had also done the previous year. I took the Invictus 99 at 179cm and Liz the TST-W (100mm) at 165. This had been Liz second favored ski in December 2012 to the Blizzard Samba she eventually bought in 2014. We skied Terry’s Run to the gondola. Up top the clouds made the light a bit flat already at 2:40. We skied Climax to China Bowl and through the ungroomed below to chair 3. Then I skied near the chair line while Liz skied the bumps in West Bowl.
The Invictus 99 skied almost identically to my Bonafides. In both 2015 and 2016 we have found that Armada does an excellent job of making skis in the 100mm width range that handle groomers and firmer snow very well.
We got down at 3:15, too late for another demo. I took a couple runs while she shopped for goggles and some high tech socks. Then we both skied over to the car at chair 4. My total for the day was 24,100 vertical.
With the far deeper snowpack we came for 3 days this time. Tuesday was the day before the demo, so we could check out conditions. The last storm dumped almost 4 feet and the end of January. Garry Klassen was here just after that but reported variable conditions, with softest snow near chairs 22 and 23 but some of the other upper runs packed very hard by the wind.
It’s now been 10+ days since the storm, first time this season the Sierra has gone a week without new snow. It’s also quite warm hitting upper 40’s Tuesday with clear skies and almost no wind. Fortunately it’s still February so only about ¼ of the mountain is melt/freezing much. Some areas like chair 5 were more mogulled than usual due to the traffic of the past 10 days.
Liz had a slow start setting up Mountain Collective so I took a few warm up runs on chairs 2 and 3. View of the upper mountain from Hangman’s to Drop Out with wide groomed Cornice in between.
Liz and I regrouped to ski a couple of runs on chair 5, and then moved to chair 22. First we skied Grizzly.
Liz did an encore while I skied Avy 1. It was now past 11 so we figured the south facing groomers would be in corn mode and thus cruised Back for More. Up 22 again I skied Avy 2 on the way to lunch at the Mill. We had lunch with Sierra Lady and Patrick from the slowly decaying Mammoth Forum. Mammoth Forum is no longer linked to the ski area website and is also closed to new entrants. Nonetheless enough locals and regulars still post to provide useful info periodically.
Patrick had formerly lived in SoCal, is now in St. Louis and was visiting with his friend Mike. Both are ski instructors at their local hill Hidden Valley. Liz and I skied with them after lunch. We went up to chair 23 and first skied Drop Out 3. Liz repeated that while we skied the Wipe Outs. Patrick and Mike are skiing below them here.
Then we headed off the back to 14. Some of the open terrain up high had softened, and when it got cruddy we traversed back to the wide open groomer. With the now deep 9-14 foot base there is more extensive grooming in 14 than I’ve seen for quite a while. While riding 14 we noticed that Dos Passos was navigable. I’ve only skied it 4-5 times so I suggested the others should take the opportunity. Liz and Patrick in the rocky middle section.
Due to wind exposure this section is often not passable even in some big years, but is worth doing when available for the open sections above and below.
Next time up 14 we climbed to the top of Monument/Scotty’s. Monument had the sofest snow of the day.
We skied to Main Lodge and took the gondola up. I had to check out Hangman’s for the first time in 3 years. It was smooth but extremely steep near the choke to I had to sideslip past that. The others went down Cornice and traversed over to meet me. Patrick skiing here with view up to Hangman’s at left and Varmint’s Nest upper right.
Varmint’s Nest fills in enough to be skiable maybe once a decade.
We made it to McCoy Station in time for last gondola. Despite the clear day, light was somewhat flat by the time we got to Dave’s Run at 3:30. Snow was good but I skied deliberately because I could only see clearly about 2 turns ahead. Patrick was not so lucky. He yard-saled and slid about 500 feet.
He attempted to self arrest but his aluminum pole was not up to the task.
Patrick was not injured but skied to the Mill and called it a day, as did Liz with her feet needing a break. Mike and I skied over to Main lodge via Andy’s Double Gold in the late afternoon sun, then back to chair 2 parking.
I finished with 26,500 vertical.
Wednesday we got up to the chair 10 parking by 8:30 for the demo. Being early we registered quickly, but I guess Liz has been around me too long :lol: as she forgot her Mammoth lift ticket and had to go back to the hotel to get it. She then parked at chair 4 to get on the mountain easily and skied over to the demo at chair 2. It was still warm but a bit breezy in a few places, notably riding chair 2. Thin clouds formed starting about noon and it was mostly overcast by 2PM.
Meanwhile at 8:45AM with the ongoing dry spell I figured to be looking for good carving skis. I started with the 177cm Volkl RTM84. These indeed filled the bill as I skied Broadway, Face of 3, then up top to Climax, a few moguls in Christmas Bowl and finally a cruise down Coyote and Comeback Trail.
Liz arrived within minutes and we went to Kastle. Kastle had a small selection, and also does not make separate women’s skis. But they had the FX95 HP in a range of lengths, including a 165cm which Liz took. They had one MX89. This is a stiffer, narrower ski which I suspected fit the morning conditions better. That ski was a 172cm, but they assured me that it was the right length for me and probably way too long for Liz. So I took the MX and both of us were very pleased. The MX like the Volkl really held an edge through the tail and was ideal for morning groomers like our first run on Broadway. I sent Liz to Face of 3 while I skied Gravy Chute, bumped up with chalky snow, where the firm grip and short length made an ideal combination. We then took the gondola and skied Dave’s Run, much easier than Tuesday in the morning sun.
Liz loved the FX95, so that says a lot about versatility in firm packed snow at that width underfoot.
New to the show this year was Black Crows. They are made in Chamonix and we have seen them In Utah and Japan, though this is the first season actively marketing in the US. Liz took the women’s Camox Birdie, 97mm underfoot and 165cm. Once again I went for a narrower, stiffer, more sidecut ski, the Orb 9.1 at 178cm. We skied Stump Alley, then went up Chair 23. I skied Drop Out 1 while Liz skied halfway down the Cornice befor moving into the ungroomed well below Drop Out 3. Liz’s skis were easy to turn but seemed to have an inconsistent grip on the groomers. St. Anton was a great carvable groomer for me but not so much for her. Liz requested an ungroomed route back to the base of 2, so we skied Rodger’s Ridge. This was nicely softened at noon by a morning of sun. Liz suspected the Birdie’s had a bad tune, and when we turned them in the rep inspected the skis and agreed.
Another new entry was Liberty, based in Colorado. Liz took the Envy 106 at 167cm and this time I took the counterpart men’s ski, Origin 106 at 182cm. We skied Stump Alley, then up 23. On the widest skis of the day we headed for Monument and Scotty’s, which had the softest snow.
That was where these skis were best. On groomers and firmer snow I’m generally less comfortable on this width, though on St. Anton I found that a slight upweighting motion smoothed out the turns. Part of this was the contrast from the 3 prior skis that were more designed to just tip on edge and carve aggressively.
Our final demos were from Armada, which was the only demo today that we had also done the previous year. I took the Invictus 99 at 179cm and Liz the TST-W (100mm) at 165. This had been Liz second favored ski in December 2012 to the Blizzard Samba she eventually bought in 2014. We skied Terry’s Run to the gondola. Up top the clouds made the light a bit flat already at 2:40. We skied Climax to China Bowl and through the ungroomed below to chair 3. Then I skied near the chair line while Liz skied the bumps in West Bowl.
The Invictus 99 skied almost identically to my Bonafides. In both 2015 and 2016 we have found that Armada does an excellent job of making skis in the 100mm width range that handle groomers and firmer snow very well.
We got down at 3:15, too late for another demo. I took a couple runs while she shopped for goggles and some high tech socks. Then we both skied over to the car at chair 4. My total for the day was 24,100 vertical.
Glen had just come back from Big White in Canada, where tseeb and I will be skiing Wednesday.