Another amazing day!
I started the day on Chair 3, which opened about 10 minutes late. For whatever, I saw an open gate onto Saddle Bowl from the lift and I got some untracked powder there for about 10 turns. When I reached the top of 3 for the second time, they were dropping the rope on the backside. I wasn't the first past the rope, but with the Praxis, I zoomed by everyone else traversing through the powder and got the first tracks down Cornice. They were really nice and not wind affected, and then I skied the untracked trees next to St. Anton all the way down to Main Lodge. From there, I loaded the Gondola, and got lucky when they opened the top right then. I ended up being the 4th gondola to the top, and I had a completely untracked line down Climax. Climax was tracked out immediately, of course, so on my second trip up the Gondola, I traversed out to Drop Out. I had another completely untracked line down this, and I entered the Chair 23 line right when it was opening.
From 23, I had yet another completely untracked line down Wipe Out. On my next trip up, nothing was completely untracked, but P4 was super deep and barely tracked. I traversed under the Philippe's runout and got a nice untracked section there. I took the gondola up next and went out to the Head Chutes. These usually get fairly wind-scoured, but today, they were awesome. Although it's a short shot, I had more untracked pow. From there I traversed and did one of the Wazoo chutes, which was also deep and completely untracked. After that, I traversed out into Dragon's Tail for more untracked snow. This was a really cold storm, and the snow in Dragon's Tail was the lightest I have ever experienced. It was also about 2.5 feet deep :-D For the next few hours, I did laps on Chair 9 hitting the final Wazoo chute to Dragon's Tail. There was definitely untracked snow and I'd say about half my turns were untracked, but the snow was so light and fluffy that it didn't really matter, as by tracked I mean just 1 or 2 tracks. At noon, I noticed that Baby Dave's was still untracked, so I went back to the Gondola to ski that. The wind was really picking up, which meant amazing wind buff on part of Dave's. Additionally, the wind buff on the liftline of Chair 9 was amazing, and unlike I'd ever seen before.
Unfortunately, the winds got ridiculous and they shut down 9, the Upper Gondola, and 23. When stepping out of the gondola station for the final time, I nearly had my skis blown out of my hands. Apparently, a window pane was also blown out up there. I was cold and tired from the previous day, so I decided to make my run of 25 the last of the day. I sidestepped up and got into Avy 3, which was completely untracked wind buff.
All in all, I'd say yesterday was definitely better, but my timing on the top was great and today was probably my best bluebird pow day of the season. I've skied deeper snow at Mammoth this year, but these two days were undoubtedly both top 5 for the season and probably the best back-to-back days.
Another rough-but-more-accurate-than-yesterday vertical count: 21500 ft in a little less than 5 hours. All of it was powder except maybe 1500 ft of short groomers back to the lift. Although everything is tracked out, Tony should have some awesome wind buff tomorrow, and all the tracked out stuff will still be super soft. There were some snow flurries as I was leaving, but they probably won't amount to much.
I started the day on Chair 3, which opened about 10 minutes late. For whatever, I saw an open gate onto Saddle Bowl from the lift and I got some untracked powder there for about 10 turns. When I reached the top of 3 for the second time, they were dropping the rope on the backside. I wasn't the first past the rope, but with the Praxis, I zoomed by everyone else traversing through the powder and got the first tracks down Cornice. They were really nice and not wind affected, and then I skied the untracked trees next to St. Anton all the way down to Main Lodge. From there, I loaded the Gondola, and got lucky when they opened the top right then. I ended up being the 4th gondola to the top, and I had a completely untracked line down Climax. Climax was tracked out immediately, of course, so on my second trip up the Gondola, I traversed out to Drop Out. I had another completely untracked line down this, and I entered the Chair 23 line right when it was opening.
From 23, I had yet another completely untracked line down Wipe Out. On my next trip up, nothing was completely untracked, but P4 was super deep and barely tracked. I traversed under the Philippe's runout and got a nice untracked section there. I took the gondola up next and went out to the Head Chutes. These usually get fairly wind-scoured, but today, they were awesome. Although it's a short shot, I had more untracked pow. From there I traversed and did one of the Wazoo chutes, which was also deep and completely untracked. After that, I traversed out into Dragon's Tail for more untracked snow. This was a really cold storm, and the snow in Dragon's Tail was the lightest I have ever experienced. It was also about 2.5 feet deep :-D For the next few hours, I did laps on Chair 9 hitting the final Wazoo chute to Dragon's Tail. There was definitely untracked snow and I'd say about half my turns were untracked, but the snow was so light and fluffy that it didn't really matter, as by tracked I mean just 1 or 2 tracks. At noon, I noticed that Baby Dave's was still untracked, so I went back to the Gondola to ski that. The wind was really picking up, which meant amazing wind buff on part of Dave's. Additionally, the wind buff on the liftline of Chair 9 was amazing, and unlike I'd ever seen before.
Unfortunately, the winds got ridiculous and they shut down 9, the Upper Gondola, and 23. When stepping out of the gondola station for the final time, I nearly had my skis blown out of my hands. Apparently, a window pane was also blown out up there. I was cold and tired from the previous day, so I decided to make my run of 25 the last of the day. I sidestepped up and got into Avy 3, which was completely untracked wind buff.
All in all, I'd say yesterday was definitely better, but my timing on the top was great and today was probably my best bluebird pow day of the season. I've skied deeper snow at Mammoth this year, but these two days were undoubtedly both top 5 for the season and probably the best back-to-back days.
Another rough-but-more-accurate-than-yesterday vertical count: 21500 ft in a little less than 5 hours. All of it was powder except maybe 1500 ft of short groomers back to the lift. Although everything is tracked out, Tony should have some awesome wind buff tomorrow, and all the tracked out stuff will still be super soft. There were some snow flurries as I was leaving, but they probably won't amount to much.
