The extended week at Mammoth allowed me to wrap up 2007-08 on a much better note than the debacle of April 12.
Cover is far better than the closing weekends of the past 3 seasons (all of which I attended), so the debate continues on the Mammoth Forum http://forums.mammothmountain.com/forum ... erthread=y.
On the lower mountain Broadway, the race course runs and the runout from St. Anton are covered with close to full width. The upper mountain pics I'll post soon speak for themselves.
Weather was in the 50's, sunny with light breeze Saturday and occasional stronger gusts Sunday. This was nearly ideal in terms of being warm enough to soften the snow, but the wind delayed the onset of heavy, grabby conditions. I do think the last minute decision to stay open the extra week resulted in leaner staffing. There was no mid-morning extra grooming/salting, plus chair 2 and the upper gondola did not run. The gondola may have been in scheduled maintenance before mountain bike season starts June 21.
Upper Stump Alley and Powder Bowl had nice corn 8:30-9AM both days, followed within an hour by Broadway and the groomed strip of Cornice. With similar exposure and armed with admin's and BobbyD's coaching, Becky decided to venture into Drop Out about 10:30 Saturday morning. Conditions weren't quite what they appeared, as unconsolidated snow from the Memorial Day storm was very sticky. The steep upper section was good if you stayed in the tight skier packed line, but she sideslipped a bit and then face-planted making the first turn in the unpacked snow.
Below the confined steep sections of Wipe Out/Drop Out I found the snow quite exhausting Saturday, but I suspect my sedentary past few weeks didn't help any. I also should have brought the Mantra's for the heavy snow. By Sunday skiers had packed out more snow and the runs near chair 23 skied better. I even threaded the line between the rocks of Drop Out 2. Farther north on the Hump, Scotty's, and Paranoid most snow remained unconsolidated, and only a combination of iron quads and fat skis would likely find success.
The other good steep shot was Gravy Chute under Chair 1, and unlike Patrick's 2006 visit it was not necessary to walk over dirt to get to it. On Sunday I also checked out the bump zipper line on West Bowl, but I was hopeless. A couple of turns and I would be "throwing beer cans" and unable to stay in the line.
The racers were training on a jump into Gremlin's Gulch and running some gates on St. Anton. I've learned to keep an eye on this, and when the racers are done the corn cruising on these runs are as good as it gets. So we got about 3 of those runs starting about 11:30 each day.
Overall one of the better late spring weekends, 23,700 Saturday and 22,700 Sunday. The mountain closed 1PM both days.
Cover is far better than the closing weekends of the past 3 seasons (all of which I attended), so the debate continues on the Mammoth Forum http://forums.mammothmountain.com/forum ... erthread=y.
On the lower mountain Broadway, the race course runs and the runout from St. Anton are covered with close to full width. The upper mountain pics I'll post soon speak for themselves.
Weather was in the 50's, sunny with light breeze Saturday and occasional stronger gusts Sunday. This was nearly ideal in terms of being warm enough to soften the snow, but the wind delayed the onset of heavy, grabby conditions. I do think the last minute decision to stay open the extra week resulted in leaner staffing. There was no mid-morning extra grooming/salting, plus chair 2 and the upper gondola did not run. The gondola may have been in scheduled maintenance before mountain bike season starts June 21.
Upper Stump Alley and Powder Bowl had nice corn 8:30-9AM both days, followed within an hour by Broadway and the groomed strip of Cornice. With similar exposure and armed with admin's and BobbyD's coaching, Becky decided to venture into Drop Out about 10:30 Saturday morning. Conditions weren't quite what they appeared, as unconsolidated snow from the Memorial Day storm was very sticky. The steep upper section was good if you stayed in the tight skier packed line, but she sideslipped a bit and then face-planted making the first turn in the unpacked snow.
Below the confined steep sections of Wipe Out/Drop Out I found the snow quite exhausting Saturday, but I suspect my sedentary past few weeks didn't help any. I also should have brought the Mantra's for the heavy snow. By Sunday skiers had packed out more snow and the runs near chair 23 skied better. I even threaded the line between the rocks of Drop Out 2. Farther north on the Hump, Scotty's, and Paranoid most snow remained unconsolidated, and only a combination of iron quads and fat skis would likely find success.
The other good steep shot was Gravy Chute under Chair 1, and unlike Patrick's 2006 visit it was not necessary to walk over dirt to get to it. On Sunday I also checked out the bump zipper line on West Bowl, but I was hopeless. A couple of turns and I would be "throwing beer cans" and unable to stay in the line.
The racers were training on a jump into Gremlin's Gulch and running some gates on St. Anton. I've learned to keep an eye on this, and when the racers are done the corn cruising on these runs are as good as it gets. So we got about 3 of those runs starting about 11:30 each day.
Overall one of the better late spring weekends, 23,700 Saturday and 22,700 Sunday. The mountain closed 1PM both days.
