Mammoth received 4 inches Friday night through Saturday morning. Normally, I wouldn't think that would be enough to make much of a difference, but certain areas seemed to have more snow blown in. Our first run on Roger's Ridge provided a face shot and at least 6 inches of snow. Our next few laps were in Bear, where the snow was even deeper, and untouched. I did sink to the harder bottom of the snow, but it felt like as much as a foot in places. Mammoth has been really disappointing in opening terrain this year, and that continued on Saturday. Despite barely any new snow, Gold Rush did not open until about 10. Winds were strong enough to strip snow off some of the normal areas, but by Mammoth standards, it was nothing special. Visibility wasn't great, but it was far from white-out.
Around 11:30, the clouds really started clearing up, and most of the mountain was sunny. We went to McCoy for lunch and decided to start the line for the Upper Gondola. It seemed as if everyone was waiting for someone to start the line, so fairly soon after we staked out our place, the line reached the door. The top of the mountain was cloudy, but I could clearly see chair on 23 from inside McCoy, so it wasn't that bad. Patrol was continually making laps off the top, but they refused to open it up. We waited for one and a half hours, when they finally told us the top wasn't going to happen. Chair 9 had opened, however, so we rushed over there to ski Dragon's Tail. The traverse out was extremely wind-blown and fairly rocky, but the Tail held pretty good snow, similar to what we found in Bear earlier in the day. We did a few laps through the tight trees and then decided to call it a day around 4.
Sunday was absolutely beautiful and almost windless, so the top opened right away. We got a late start, so instead of trying to get fresh tracks off 23, we opted for Hemlock. After the short hike, we were rewarded with about 6-8 inches of untracked snow. After that, we skied P4, which was soft, but a bit skied out. The next time up, I did P3, which was very good snow. At the top, there was probably 8 inches of chopped up powder, and below the gully, almost perfect windbuff. It was hard in spots, but it was fairly easy to find a line to carve up. I skied P3 pretty much the entire day, mixing in a lap on Wipe Out 1 that was good, but nothing like P3. Some of my friends tried Philippe's, but there was a nasty rock band that they had to climb down over. Overall, it was a great day with smaller than average weekend lift lines.
The ski club I am a part of recently purchased a GoPro HD helmet cam, so if you want to see some video from Mammoth and Baldy, we have a few videos up on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/user3060811
Around 11:30, the clouds really started clearing up, and most of the mountain was sunny. We went to McCoy for lunch and decided to start the line for the Upper Gondola. It seemed as if everyone was waiting for someone to start the line, so fairly soon after we staked out our place, the line reached the door. The top of the mountain was cloudy, but I could clearly see chair on 23 from inside McCoy, so it wasn't that bad. Patrol was continually making laps off the top, but they refused to open it up. We waited for one and a half hours, when they finally told us the top wasn't going to happen. Chair 9 had opened, however, so we rushed over there to ski Dragon's Tail. The traverse out was extremely wind-blown and fairly rocky, but the Tail held pretty good snow, similar to what we found in Bear earlier in the day. We did a few laps through the tight trees and then decided to call it a day around 4.
Sunday was absolutely beautiful and almost windless, so the top opened right away. We got a late start, so instead of trying to get fresh tracks off 23, we opted for Hemlock. After the short hike, we were rewarded with about 6-8 inches of untracked snow. After that, we skied P4, which was soft, but a bit skied out. The next time up, I did P3, which was very good snow. At the top, there was probably 8 inches of chopped up powder, and below the gully, almost perfect windbuff. It was hard in spots, but it was fairly easy to find a line to carve up. I skied P3 pretty much the entire day, mixing in a lap on Wipe Out 1 that was good, but nothing like P3. Some of my friends tried Philippe's, but there was a nasty rock band that they had to climb down over. Overall, it was a great day with smaller than average weekend lift lines.
The ski club I am a part of recently purchased a GoPro HD helmet cam, so if you want to see some video from Mammoth and Baldy, we have a few videos up on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/user3060811