Fresh Pictures of The top of Mammoth

As the one who made a couple of the skeptical comments, I can only say that during the peak of the storm Saturday all we had to go on were those webcam pics covered with droplets from the rain.

I have often touted Mammoth's unique microclimate in North American skiing: the only location with coastal snow at Rocky Mountain altitude. It pays off more often in late season, but this is not the first time that Mammoth has received an early storm setting up a good base while it's been nearly all rain up at Tahoe. Adjusting for latitude Mt. Bachelor and the Whistler alpine have some of the same characteristics, but those places still get occasional winter rain, while the top of Mammoth averages less than one day per ski season.
 
Reading Tony's take on Mammoth's unique high altitude meritime climate brings back fond memories of a particularly potent Pineapple Connection back in the mid-Eighties. I was living there (1972-1987) and we got seven days of snow and two days of rain out of a seemingly unending nine day storm cycle. It only snowed two out of nine in Tahoe. After the first eight feet fell, a rain on snow event caused an enormous climax avalanche in the Sherwin Bowls adjacent to town. It created the "Lone Pine" run and a gigantic pile of slash that took all summer to clear. I remember walking to town out Old Mammoth Road, which had been closed for days due to hurricane force winds, only to see a huge gash where steep trees used to live. If I remember correctly we almost skied year round during that time thanks to back-to-back El Nino winters. The snow had barely melted off above 10,000 feet when the early snows of the next winter had moved in.
Your observations about rain events at least here at Mt Bachelor are certainly true. I'm sure the fellows farther east snicker at the possibility of rain during the middle of winter. Mercifully rain is still fairly rare as we usually get only a couple of days periods often followed immediately by more snow. But rain is actually more bark than bite as rain pack a great surface to ride on if you care to, and the resulting high water content snowpack turns into great corn later in the season. I think it's also a contributing factor to our ability to ski year round here in the PNW.
Those boys in Mammoth will be thanking their good luck in getting a "dreaded" white rain event just in time to set up the season. [-o<
 
The back-to-back seasons were 1981-82 and 1982-83. Both were full operation by Thanksgiving weekend. I put the season's first track down the face of chair 9 coming from Dave's Run on Nov. 29, 1981. 1982 had a 1 foot storm on June 30. I was not there for that but some time ago I posted pics from skimming the natural pond at the base of chair 3 on June 20. 1982-83 remains the deepest snowpack I've seen at Mammoth. It closed July 28 but my last day was July 4. I wasn't thinking about ski streaks back then, but since I skied Aug/Sept in New Zealand in 1982 it was close to an "endless season," with the longest stretch of unskied days being Sept. 4 - Nov. 11.

There were 2 week-long Pineapple Express storms which fit schubwa's description. Both occurred during President's week, in 1980 and 1986. 1986 was the more extreme event. It rained to 10,000 feet in the SoCal mountains for 6 days and snowed 12 feet at Mammoth. I believe this was also the storm where an avalanche from the top of chair 23 ran all the way down St. Anton and damaged the unloading station of the beginner chair 11.
 
It's nice to have an inhouse statistician to keep you honest. I believe it was the 1986 Pineapple Connection that caused those huge avies to rip.
The two (or three) back-to-back seasons were the ones you mentioned. The details have gotten a little blurry but I do remember logging seasons of nearly 200 days or more. I went on a surfing trip to Punta Conejo in the spring of 1983 after I took a late layoff from Ski School. When I got back to town in late May, Max Good asked me to start working again as the skiers just kept coming and the snow pack was still insanely deep!
In October of 1983 we filmed a TV commercial in Saddle Bowl on natural snow (with new on top) left over from the two previous winters. That commercial aired for the 1984 Olympics and my buddy Dave Keller was the star.
 
Snowman,

Do you have any pics of the Lone Pine run in the Sherwins? I don't know if you guys still call it that, but it might be fun to show the readers the scope of that slide for scale.

I think Tony and I were referring to the same 1986 storm. He just gave me the option of naming the 1980 event which I can't remember... (I had a night time job then, if you know what I mean).
 
He is talking about the Feb 1986 event! Wrong again Tony...
Click to expand...
Read my post; I said 1986.
:snowball fight:

Someone on the Mammoth forum posted a pic of the 10+ foot fracture line on Drop Out from the Feb. 1986 storm. Unfortunately that's the old forum no loonger online. Perhaps Snowman has a copy.
 
Thanks for sharing those awesome pics. I am excited and need a release from daily stresses. I called about a late ski patrol refresher, only to keep my card active and not repeat the long OEC class as an already health care professional. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they need patrollers and are very flexible. I may still have my hand in patrolling with my busy work and school schedule. It doesn't mean much for Mammoth, but, is just another part of the excitement of skiing, bringing more to life. The Los Angeles County Emergency Room is about as opposite from skiing as it can get and demands some kind of release from the saddest parts of life. Thanks again for those great pics and all your hard work at Mammoth! :) :-({|= :lol:
 
mammothsnowman":8ut7r54q said:
One Storm that nobody had any real faith in and this is what we get... this is why I choose to live in Mammoth!
http://mammothsnowman.com/imagegalleries/110508/index.htm
Click to expand...

The snow looks rather windcrusted. There are no S turns on that upper part. Just Zs. At first I thought they were skin tracks, but then saw that the skiers was going down, or rather, across and switching back.

Looks better than the skiing here. We've been in the mid 60s and enjoying the mtn biking. Cold weather is expected to return soon.
 
schubwa":30csk6sx said:
It's nice to have an inhouse statistician to keep you honest. I believe it was the 1986 Pineapple Connection that caused those huge avies to rip.
The two (or three) back-to-back seasons were the ones you mentioned. The details have gotten a little blurry but I do remember logging seasons of nearly 200 days or more. I went on a surfing trip to Punta Conejo in the spring of 1983 after I took a late layoff from Ski School. When I got back to town in late May, Max Good asked me to start working again as the skiers just kept coming and the snow pack was still insanely deep!
In October of 1983 we filmed a TV commercial in Saddle Bowl on natural snow (with new on top) left over from the two previous winters. That commercial aired for the 1984 Olympics and my buddy Dave Keller was the star.
Click to expand...

Did not they tell you in your stats class, statistics lie? And their are always outliers, or those datu that fall outside of the norm or expected. Try weather forcasts in the changing mountains for example! The combination of a great ability with the English language and a great ability with statistics makes for a convincing combination. Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies but nobody is listening. Thank god for webcams!
 
schubwa":rrmkpycu said:
It's nice to have an inhouse statistician to keep you honest. I believe it was the 1986 Pineapple Connection that caused those huge avies to rip.
The two (or three) back-to-back seasons were the ones you mentioned. The details have gotten a little blurry but I do remember logging seasons of nearly 200 days or more. I went on a surfing trip to Punta Conejo in the spring of 1983 after I took a late layoff from Ski School. When I got back to town in late May, Max Good asked me to start working again as the skiers just kept coming and the snow pack was still insanely deep!
In October of 1983 we filmed a TV commercial in Saddle Bowl on natural snow (with new on top) left over from the two previous winters. That commercial aired for the 1984 Olympics and my buddy Dave Keller was the star.
Click to expand...
:ski:
 
The snow looks rather windcrusted. There are no S turns on that upper part. Just Zs. At first I thought they were skin tracks, but then saw that the skiers was going down, or rather, across and switching back.
Click to expand...
The top was not open to the public yet when Snowman took those pics. Those are undoubtedly patroller tracks making safety cuts to assess the snow stability.

Besides, for the first storm of the season you don't want fluff; you want a base that will stay there. If it does not snow for the next month Mammoth will look a whole lot better than Snowbird. However, I will readily concede that the odds of no new snow in Utah over the next month are very remote.
 
Tony Crocker":1ya5ke3g said:
However, I will readily concede that the odds of no new snow in Utah over the next month are very remote.
Click to expand...

Sunday and then again next Wednesday, baby! \:D/
 
Mammoth midweek 11-10 and 11-11 was awesome. The top, the Cornice, etc, was perfect, snow wise, perfect size and consistency of moguls, a person every 5-10 minutes on the slopes, happy staff and experienced skiers, no accidents observed, die hard early ski season community having a BLAST! I am working on getting my PICs up!

I found this awesome video filmed from around the world (U.S., Canada, France, Finland, Germany, Argentina, Italy, Chile, etc. ) with big mountain skiers, the best to date. It is incredible footage as well as informative. Click the video link below once you get to the site and enjoy! Aside from the knowledge base in the film, the ski footage is among the best I have seen.

http://www.recco.com/startsida/index.asp =D>
 
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