Day 30 of the season! That 5x more than any previous year of my life.
I'm not exactly sure how much snow was reported, but it felt like about 2 feet in most places (and 12-14:1), with certain areas deeper. I started the day lapping Roger's Ridge (and the trees to either side). It was completely empty early on and I got five laps of untracked Utah blower before heading up Gold Rush for some variety. Mammoth was abnormally good about opening lifts early, and when I got to the top of Gold Rush at around 9:30, I was surprised to see that Chair 22 was running and looking pretty tracked out. I traversed into lower Avy 3 from Gold Rush and got a few untracked turns before heading down to 22. Since everything else looked tracked but I knew Avy 3 was good, I did a full Avy 3 run, which was pretty much untracked the whole way down.
Chair 5 looked close to opening at 9:45 so I figured I should go to Chair 3, as that generally opens first. This seemed to be a false alarm, however, and Chairs 3 and 5 opened simultaneously around 10:30. I wanted to stay near Chairs 3 and 5, so I traversed across the face of 3 from Stump Alley to The Bear. I did 3 laps here before Chair 3 opened, and they were probably the best runs of the day. Due to the annoying traverse, they were completely untouched and the snow was about waist deep. It was basically one elongated faceshot, and I was even going slowly since I couldn't see!
Since no one was waiting in line for lifts to open today, I ended up getting lucky with the 2nd chair up 3. I of course headed for West Bowl which was consistent untracked 2 foot deep powder. The "crowds" had been at 22, so they ended up tracking out 5, leaving 3 for me. West Bowl got tracked fairly quickly as everyone was going there, but I still got about 4 more runs of completely untracked powder on the Face of 3, China Bowl, and Christmas Bowl. As always, the Face of 3 wasn't quite as deep due to the wind (and it was very strong today). Still, it was far from wind-scoured and I would say there was at least a foot in most spots.
Once 3 was getting tracked, I decided to try Chair 5. It was still very good, but the top parts of the Face of 5 and Dry Creek were closed. They would remain this way all day, although about 20 people poached Dry Creek [-X . I spent the rest of the day on Chair 3, where I found one line down the face that never really got tracked. This led into either Bear or the cliffs above Coyote. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to jumping off stuff, so these cliffs were perfect for me (5-10 feet), and for some reason I was the only person to touch them all day. Bear only became lightly tracked and was still really fluffy, deep snow at 3:30.
For the very end of the day, I returned to Gold Rush and lapped the bottom half of Avy 3 in the trees. This was, unlike every other part of the Avys, completely untracked. It was a little wind blown, but all that did was create fun wind lips with huge faceshot landings. I followed this up with an area off the right of Wall Street that I discovered for the first time today. As far as I can tell, it's not named, but it was steep enough and had very few tracks.
The mountain cleared up around 2:00 and it looks beautiful up top. A little wind-affected, but at this point, nothing bad. Chair 9 also didn't open. They did a great job opening lifts early today, and if they had known it would clear up, the top and Chair 9 probably would have opened around 2:00 pm. I expect them to open early tomorrow and get tracked out pretty quickly by the locals. The snow should still be very nice on Friday due to the freezing temperatures, but Tony probably won't have any untracked powder besides Dragon's Tail and Hemlock when he arrives.
EDIT for Tony and the other mileage counters. By my very rough measurements, I skied 34,100 vertical feet today. At least 30,000 of that was powder, and I'd guess at least 25,000 of the powder was almost entirely untouched. I could have done better but I did a lot of traversing and ended up getting stuck on Chair 25 once. I was the first on the mountain and nearly the last off. I never stopped during a single run except when examining cliffs and took no breaks. I'm dead right now.
I'm not exactly sure how much snow was reported, but it felt like about 2 feet in most places (and 12-14:1), with certain areas deeper. I started the day lapping Roger's Ridge (and the trees to either side). It was completely empty early on and I got five laps of untracked Utah blower before heading up Gold Rush for some variety. Mammoth was abnormally good about opening lifts early, and when I got to the top of Gold Rush at around 9:30, I was surprised to see that Chair 22 was running and looking pretty tracked out. I traversed into lower Avy 3 from Gold Rush and got a few untracked turns before heading down to 22. Since everything else looked tracked but I knew Avy 3 was good, I did a full Avy 3 run, which was pretty much untracked the whole way down.
Chair 5 looked close to opening at 9:45 so I figured I should go to Chair 3, as that generally opens first. This seemed to be a false alarm, however, and Chairs 3 and 5 opened simultaneously around 10:30. I wanted to stay near Chairs 3 and 5, so I traversed across the face of 3 from Stump Alley to The Bear. I did 3 laps here before Chair 3 opened, and they were probably the best runs of the day. Due to the annoying traverse, they were completely untouched and the snow was about waist deep. It was basically one elongated faceshot, and I was even going slowly since I couldn't see!
Since no one was waiting in line for lifts to open today, I ended up getting lucky with the 2nd chair up 3. I of course headed for West Bowl which was consistent untracked 2 foot deep powder. The "crowds" had been at 22, so they ended up tracking out 5, leaving 3 for me. West Bowl got tracked fairly quickly as everyone was going there, but I still got about 4 more runs of completely untracked powder on the Face of 3, China Bowl, and Christmas Bowl. As always, the Face of 3 wasn't quite as deep due to the wind (and it was very strong today). Still, it was far from wind-scoured and I would say there was at least a foot in most spots.
Once 3 was getting tracked, I decided to try Chair 5. It was still very good, but the top parts of the Face of 5 and Dry Creek were closed. They would remain this way all day, although about 20 people poached Dry Creek [-X . I spent the rest of the day on Chair 3, where I found one line down the face that never really got tracked. This led into either Bear or the cliffs above Coyote. I'm not very adventurous when it comes to jumping off stuff, so these cliffs were perfect for me (5-10 feet), and for some reason I was the only person to touch them all day. Bear only became lightly tracked and was still really fluffy, deep snow at 3:30.
For the very end of the day, I returned to Gold Rush and lapped the bottom half of Avy 3 in the trees. This was, unlike every other part of the Avys, completely untracked. It was a little wind blown, but all that did was create fun wind lips with huge faceshot landings. I followed this up with an area off the right of Wall Street that I discovered for the first time today. As far as I can tell, it's not named, but it was steep enough and had very few tracks.
The mountain cleared up around 2:00 and it looks beautiful up top. A little wind-affected, but at this point, nothing bad. Chair 9 also didn't open. They did a great job opening lifts early today, and if they had known it would clear up, the top and Chair 9 probably would have opened around 2:00 pm. I expect them to open early tomorrow and get tracked out pretty quickly by the locals. The snow should still be very nice on Friday due to the freezing temperatures, but Tony probably won't have any untracked powder besides Dragon's Tail and Hemlock when he arrives.
EDIT for Tony and the other mileage counters. By my very rough measurements, I skied 34,100 vertical feet today. At least 30,000 of that was powder, and I'd guess at least 25,000 of the powder was almost entirely untouched. I could have done better but I did a lot of traversing and ended up getting stuck on Chair 25 once. I was the first on the mountain and nearly the last off. I never stopped during a single run except when examining cliffs and took no breaks. I'm dead right now.
