We drove to Mammoth Saturday and drove up to the Mill to watch the fireworks shot off from the top of chair 23.
Sunday was expected to be the busiest day of the weekend. Lift lines at 3 and the gondola maxed about 5 minutes. The impact was more upon snow, with face of 3 and the lower race course runs getting bumpy but not sticky after 11AM.
The severe heat wave in mid-to-late June has taken a toll on the snow. There are areas, notably the entire Wipe Out side of 23 out to the Paranoids, that have less snow now than at this time in 2011.
Gravity-traverse skiing extended to Paranoid 1 then but only to Scotty's now. The bottom of Wipe Out 2 was gone and the choke points of Wipe Outs 1&3 had only a few days left with some gravel in them already. All of the Wipe Outs need to be entered by traversing across Drop Out 1 unless you want to walk over some gravel. Hangman's looks wider than 2011 but there were rocks in its throat that I needed to slide over carefully.
That said, skier packed lines off the top are excellent, fairly obvious examples in this pic.
Here's Adam ripping a wide open face on Climax.
Liz and I took 4 runs on chair 2 and one on Cornice before meeting Adam.
Snow that has not been skied much is severely suncupped. This is normal for July but was much less in evidence in 2011. This was particularly surprising to me on the chair 5 terrain because the lift was still running July 2 for the final day of Shaun White's freestyle camp. There are narrow skier-packed lines down Upper Dry Creek, Sliver and Face of 5, but the rest is suncupped fairly heavily while it was overall fairly smooth July 1-4 in 2011.
I skied Sliver, Adam skied Face of 5 and Liz traversed most of the way to the freestyle camp. We rode 5 and Adam traversed to 3 and McCoy Station. Liz got too low, so we skied Dry Creek down to chair 2.
Easy Rider was smooth and salted corn, well maintained for riders exiting the freestyle camp. We skied a couple of runs on the Face of 3, then off the back via slated Saddle Bowl and World Cup to 23. I skied Drop Out 2 (sideslipping past the rock choke), then Drop Out 1 to Andy's Double Gold. The lower race course runs were not being used for racing this weekend, and thus had more in the way of snow clumps than usual for late morning. On the next lap I skied Wipe Out 1 in excellent snow except that gravel was just emerging in its choke. St. Anton had been groomed and salted, so it's the lower run of choice midday.
Returning to the top via the gondola, I skied Hangman's, World Cup and Fascination. My final gondola Sunday was Climax to Gremlin's and St. Anton. After skiing Mambo back to the car I finished with 21,400 vertical.
The areas with more snow than 2011 IMHO are face of 3 and Gremlin's/World Cup/St. Anton. Some of this is due to deposition from avalanches during the big January/February storms. These are the core areas of the mountain needing to be snow covered for skiing to last another month. The stairway into McCoy Station is still half buried and Main Lodge probably has more snow than 2011, should last another week or two as it did in 1995.
Monday was about the same as Sunday in terms of both weather, highs about 70, lows mid-40's. Ben Solish arrived to join Adam. We also met Lonnie and some of his friends. And last but not least, Patrick is here for month #142 of his streak. The 18-foot sign on the top of the mountain is completely exposed. Here's some of our group.
Lonnie, Charles, Ben, Adam, Patrick, Liz
We all skied Climax. Lonnie's friend Danny gives up his poles in July so he can hold a beer can while skiing.
Lonnie is up the hill behind Charles.
I skied Coyote down to chair 2. Chair 5 was now closed because the freestyle camp is done, and while Easy Rider was still good, the exit strip past the Mill was not maintained and melted out completely by the end of the day. The rest of the group skied a lap on chair 3 and then we headed up top again. Here are Adam and then Ben in Hangman's.
We then concentrated on chair 23, while was on its second to last day, starting with Drop Out 3 and then Wipe Out. Here's Patrick skiing there.
Ben is below lining up the path around the gravel in the choke while Adam waits below.
On our next ride up 23, we met Lonnie and the Plakes at the top.
Liz, Lonnie, Glen Plake, Patrick (who also met Glen at Mammoth in 2006), Charles, Kimberly Plake, me
Glen skis the moguls on a different level, spraying July snow like it was winter powder in this pic I took from chair 23.
Patrick later got pics of Glen making a rare mistake.
But here's the recovery!
Patrick and I skied 2 more laps on 23, Wipe Out 3 with a choke wider than Wipe Out 1's. Finally we traversed out to Scotty's.
Patrick skiing there:
We took a last gondola up to Climax. Patrick there:
We skied over to Face of 5, had to walk a bit to get back to chair 2, then skied to Main Lodge, where we met Lonnie, his wife Joan and Liz for lunch. After lunch I returned to chair 2, finishing the day with 19,900 vertical.
Sunday was expected to be the busiest day of the weekend. Lift lines at 3 and the gondola maxed about 5 minutes. The impact was more upon snow, with face of 3 and the lower race course runs getting bumpy but not sticky after 11AM.
The severe heat wave in mid-to-late June has taken a toll on the snow. There are areas, notably the entire Wipe Out side of 23 out to the Paranoids, that have less snow now than at this time in 2011.
Gravity-traverse skiing extended to Paranoid 1 then but only to Scotty's now. The bottom of Wipe Out 2 was gone and the choke points of Wipe Outs 1&3 had only a few days left with some gravel in them already. All of the Wipe Outs need to be entered by traversing across Drop Out 1 unless you want to walk over some gravel. Hangman's looks wider than 2011 but there were rocks in its throat that I needed to slide over carefully.
That said, skier packed lines off the top are excellent, fairly obvious examples in this pic.
Here's Adam ripping a wide open face on Climax.
Liz and I took 4 runs on chair 2 and one on Cornice before meeting Adam.
Snow that has not been skied much is severely suncupped. This is normal for July but was much less in evidence in 2011. This was particularly surprising to me on the chair 5 terrain because the lift was still running July 2 for the final day of Shaun White's freestyle camp. There are narrow skier-packed lines down Upper Dry Creek, Sliver and Face of 5, but the rest is suncupped fairly heavily while it was overall fairly smooth July 1-4 in 2011.
I skied Sliver, Adam skied Face of 5 and Liz traversed most of the way to the freestyle camp. We rode 5 and Adam traversed to 3 and McCoy Station. Liz got too low, so we skied Dry Creek down to chair 2.
Easy Rider was smooth and salted corn, well maintained for riders exiting the freestyle camp. We skied a couple of runs on the Face of 3, then off the back via slated Saddle Bowl and World Cup to 23. I skied Drop Out 2 (sideslipping past the rock choke), then Drop Out 1 to Andy's Double Gold. The lower race course runs were not being used for racing this weekend, and thus had more in the way of snow clumps than usual for late morning. On the next lap I skied Wipe Out 1 in excellent snow except that gravel was just emerging in its choke. St. Anton had been groomed and salted, so it's the lower run of choice midday.
Returning to the top via the gondola, I skied Hangman's, World Cup and Fascination. My final gondola Sunday was Climax to Gremlin's and St. Anton. After skiing Mambo back to the car I finished with 21,400 vertical.
The areas with more snow than 2011 IMHO are face of 3 and Gremlin's/World Cup/St. Anton. Some of this is due to deposition from avalanches during the big January/February storms. These are the core areas of the mountain needing to be snow covered for skiing to last another month. The stairway into McCoy Station is still half buried and Main Lodge probably has more snow than 2011, should last another week or two as it did in 1995.
Monday was about the same as Sunday in terms of both weather, highs about 70, lows mid-40's. Ben Solish arrived to join Adam. We also met Lonnie and some of his friends. And last but not least, Patrick is here for month #142 of his streak. The 18-foot sign on the top of the mountain is completely exposed. Here's some of our group.
Lonnie, Charles, Ben, Adam, Patrick, Liz
We all skied Climax. Lonnie's friend Danny gives up his poles in July so he can hold a beer can while skiing.
Lonnie is up the hill behind Charles.
I skied Coyote down to chair 2. Chair 5 was now closed because the freestyle camp is done, and while Easy Rider was still good, the exit strip past the Mill was not maintained and melted out completely by the end of the day. The rest of the group skied a lap on chair 3 and then we headed up top again. Here are Adam and then Ben in Hangman's.
We then concentrated on chair 23, while was on its second to last day, starting with Drop Out 3 and then Wipe Out. Here's Patrick skiing there.
Ben is below lining up the path around the gravel in the choke while Adam waits below.
On our next ride up 23, we met Lonnie and the Plakes at the top.
Liz, Lonnie, Glen Plake, Patrick (who also met Glen at Mammoth in 2006), Charles, Kimberly Plake, me
Glen skis the moguls on a different level, spraying July snow like it was winter powder in this pic I took from chair 23.
Patrick later got pics of Glen making a rare mistake.
But here's the recovery!
Patrick and I skied 2 more laps on 23, Wipe Out 3 with a choke wider than Wipe Out 1's. Finally we traversed out to Scotty's.
Patrick skiing there:
We took a last gondola up to Climax. Patrick there:
We skied over to Face of 5, had to walk a bit to get back to chair 2, then skied to Main Lodge, where we met Lonnie, his wife Joan and Liz for lunch. After lunch I returned to chair 2, finishing the day with 19,900 vertical.
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