This weekend was nirvana for the typical skier and Exhibit A of why Mammoth is one of the world's premier ski areas. There has been no new snow for 2 weeks yet the entire mountain, groomed and ungroomed, is packed powder with almost nothing affected by melt/freeze as of Saturday. Saturday and Monday were also blue skies with no wind and temps around 40 at Canyon Lodge and in the 20's up top. Sunday was high overcast with some wind on chairs 2, 3, 5, 9 and 25, but oddly very little on top. South facing areas on 9 & 14 had some spring conditions Sunday and Monday.
Needless to say there were lots of people (I heard 18,000 on Sunday and Saturday was probably more). Yet the only lift line to exceed 10 minutes was on the gondola Saturday afternoon. Monday's attendance was 9,000 and there were no lines anywhere.
The runs on top were particularly enjoyable as their runouts had smooth cruisable windpack instead of the thick cement you get sometimes. I did Dave's, Cornice, Drop Out, Wipe Out, Scotty's and Paranoid 2 Saturday and Climax, Hangman's, Wipe Out 2 and Paranoid 1 Sunday. By Monday my legs were cooked and I only did 4 runs up top and totaled 80K for the 3 days.
I probably spent as much time on chair 5 as any weekend I remember, as it also had the smooth windpack and surprisingly short lines. Chair 22 was also outstanding, with dry snow even on Grizzly and the east facing bump runs below the Eagle catwalk.
Coverage is deep after the holiday dumps, but we're not yet at the level of coverage for 4th of July skiing. Philippe's and Huevos Grande have rock blockages and Hangman's is still narrower and more intimidating than most seasons. But it's only January.
I took a few pics in Mammoth's alpine terrain. Here's my friend Richard Weinstein Saturday on Dave's Run:
More impressive on Monday were the two women who skied by while I resting halfway down Dave's. The one in blue was a one-legged skier!
Here's the view from Scotty's toward chair 23:
While I was working the top runs Saturday Richard skied with my younger son Andrew (green pants). Here they are on the backside chair 14 area:
There are some trees on the lower half of chair 14:
Paranoid had smooth and steep windbuff for 1,000 vertical, as viewed from the top:
And from the bottom:
The slot between the rocks is Star Chute.
My older son Adam had his first Southern California Collegiate Ski Club competitions for UC San Diego this weekend. He was 8th of 30+ in GS, DQ'ed slalom and was 7th of 20 in skiercross. Here's the skiercross course:
Needless to say there were lots of people (I heard 18,000 on Sunday and Saturday was probably more). Yet the only lift line to exceed 10 minutes was on the gondola Saturday afternoon. Monday's attendance was 9,000 and there were no lines anywhere.
The runs on top were particularly enjoyable as their runouts had smooth cruisable windpack instead of the thick cement you get sometimes. I did Dave's, Cornice, Drop Out, Wipe Out, Scotty's and Paranoid 2 Saturday and Climax, Hangman's, Wipe Out 2 and Paranoid 1 Sunday. By Monday my legs were cooked and I only did 4 runs up top and totaled 80K for the 3 days.
I probably spent as much time on chair 5 as any weekend I remember, as it also had the smooth windpack and surprisingly short lines. Chair 22 was also outstanding, with dry snow even on Grizzly and the east facing bump runs below the Eagle catwalk.
Coverage is deep after the holiday dumps, but we're not yet at the level of coverage for 4th of July skiing. Philippe's and Huevos Grande have rock blockages and Hangman's is still narrower and more intimidating than most seasons. But it's only January.
I took a few pics in Mammoth's alpine terrain. Here's my friend Richard Weinstein Saturday on Dave's Run:
More impressive on Monday were the two women who skied by while I resting halfway down Dave's. The one in blue was a one-legged skier!
Here's the view from Scotty's toward chair 23:
While I was working the top runs Saturday Richard skied with my younger son Andrew (green pants). Here they are on the backside chair 14 area:
There are some trees on the lower half of chair 14:
Paranoid had smooth and steep windbuff for 1,000 vertical, as viewed from the top:
And from the bottom:
The slot between the rocks is Star Chute.
My older son Adam had his first Southern California Collegiate Ski Club competitions for UC San Diego this weekend. He was 8th of 30+ in GS, DQ'ed slalom and was 7th of 20 in skiercross. Here's the skiercross course:
