The 12-months-at-Mammoth quest is now completed. The ski streak will continue next month but not at Mammoth. :mrgreen:
As noted in Staley's video the snow quality was very good. But it was another education in backcountry, reinforcing September's lesson: the best option to ascend a mountain is on AT skis with skins if possible. Mammoth snow is usually very dense, so 18 inches is plenty to avoid trashing your skis if you're sensible and ski the powder on intermediate runs that are normally groomed and tend to be less rocky underneath.
Then there was my noob sit-back in powder technique on Terry's. Sad-to-say I usually skied powder that way in the 1980's on old skinny skis, especially in Sierra Cement. So old instincts took over when I felt unstable. At the bottom of the run the mystery was solved. #-o I had left my Scarpa boots in walk mode. #-o
#-o The snow was very consistent so only that one fall despite the self-imposed handicap.
Staley and I originally thought we would ascend Broadway to Saddle Bowl and expected that the locals would have put in a bootpack the previous day. But all was untouched when we first looked up the hill from the base of the Unbound chair.
A Mammoth employee soon drove up in a truck and told us the ski area was closed for lack of avalanche control, reminding us of deaths on Climax and Cornice in previous preseasons. His closing comment was somewhat cryptic, reinforcing what I was told in August that it is Forest Service land and we're on our own. We decided to stay away from the upper mountain, and the race course runs Far West and Fascination looked plenty enticing anyway. We also decided to follow a packed snowmobile track up the bottom of St. Anton for easier walking and to be out of direct view of the Main Lodge.
The snowmobile track unfortunately led to the top of chair 11. We considered heading to 12 but knew the slog out at the end would be brutal. Thus we skied Sesame Street back to St. Anton and made our way to the bottom of Terry's.
Many thanks to Staley for setting the bootpack up Terry's in knee deep snow. One might think Mark, full time resident of the SoCal college alumni ski house, would be better equipped for this task, but he had just completed a night shift at his job at the Westin. Staley is barely 1/3 my age and runs half marathons, so a good person to have around for a tough bootpack. Besides, this bootpack was child's play compared to the one he did last May
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9661.
Bootpack up Terry's
The original intent was to ascend to top of Terry's, then ski one of the race course runs. But it was obvious from the climb that snow quality in Terry's was good and we should take "the bird in the hand." Staley went first.
I went last, continued to the bottom of Terry's after my crash and shot both of them coming down.
Staley
Mark
Our tracks, mine at far right
Heading down carefully to avoid getting bogged down
Naturally it was on the flats in here where Staley crashed at the end of his video.
My last tracks to the left of the lift tower at Main Lodge.
Only third October day for me. I suspect this record for earliest day in the season will last a long time.
