Mammoth 5/31-6/1/2010?

tseeb

tseeb

Well-known member
A friend and I are considering a Mammoth trip from the Bay Area for Memorial Day Monday and Tuesday. I’m watching the 10-day forecasts on weather.com and longer range forecasts on myforecasts.com. At one time it looked marginal with good chance of above freezing precipitation, but it’s looking better with predicted temps in the high 50s and low 30s for Mammoth Lakes after storm this Wed/Thu. Will the skiing be worth the trip? It’s 360 mile trip there, with a stop to sleep in So. Lake Tahoe Sunday night and a 260 mile trip home over Tioga Pass after skiing Tuesday. My friend has never skied Mammoth and is not an expert skier. I have skied Mammoth at least three times with my last trip in April 2005. We have buy one day, get next day free tickets from ski show in Bay Area.
 
I will be there for the weekend. That is a favorable prediction. If there is rain at this time of year, it's usually afternoon thunderstorms after the ski area is closed for the day. That's what happened last Memorial Day weekend. This detailed report from Memorial Day last year should give you more info:
viewtopic.php?t=8005

Monday of Memorial Day weekend is usually very nice. There are extra lifts running for the holiday but lots of people skip the last day. Therefore the groomers for your intermediate friend stay in ideal corn mode longer and don't get chewed up as much as on Saturday/Sunday. Tuesday they will probably close the gondola for annual maintenance (it's used for mountain biking all summer), reopening it in time for the next holiday influx at July 4. So access to the top will be only chair 23. You'll lose access to Climax and Dave's unless you're willing to hike. Last year chair 2 also closed after Memorial Day, which cuts out the chair 5 terrain as well. I have confirmed this will be happening again, even though I'm sure it's still well covered to the base of chair 2. This sounds like an economic decision to me because I skied chair 2 on June 10-11, 2006 and June 18, 2005.

The weather this May has been very unusual. There have been a lot of cold days that have confined most skiing to the groomers. The good news is that presumably the snowpack has not declined much. According to http://izotz.com/dweebreport/ this week's snow will be 6-12 inches of the cement variety. This is more likely to consolidate quickly into corn than drier snow when it warms up. With the variable weather this Memorial Day's conditions are less predictable than usual, but there there is a potential big upside if the snow settles out right, as in LCC last weekend. Monday/Tuesday probably have a better shot at off-piste corn than Saturday/Sunday.

You can PM me if you want to meet up Monday.
 
Thanks for the information and offer to meet. I'll let you know when it gets closer. I'm stuck at 19 days this season (15 Kirkwood, 2 Heavenly and one each at Northstar and Sugar Bowl) so it would be nice to get over 20. Plus, if I want to start a streak, I'd be up to seven months. I bought a $369 Squaw Bronze Pass for next year as I'll be retired before the 2010-11 season is over and have a lot of friends with passes there.

We are having an usually cold May in No CA. It was 32 in Napa Sunday morning which beat the previous record low for the date of 35. The average for the month so far in San Jose is 59.3 which ties the record low average for the month. When you look at weather.com for Mammoth for May, 11 days so far say windy - almost half and more than half of the lows are below freezing .
 
Although conditions were variable last week when I was there, coverage is excellent and snow was pretty good. Its skiing on Memorial Day weekend, so....

Keep and eye on Tioga though, it's still not open yet... and may not be over the weekend.. although I'm sure they'll do everything they can to try and make it happen.

http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/tioga.htm
 
CA-108, Sonora Pass @ 9600', also is not open. 108 is not as beautiful and does not save as many miles as Tioga (9940+'), but does save the $20 that CA-120 through Yosemite costs.
 
Unfortunately Tioga won't be open for the weekend.

Here's what the site says:

The Tioga Road will not be open for Memorial Day weekend; there is no estimated opening date.
Click to expand...

I'm headed up tomorrow night from LA but have a bunch of people coming from SF, looks like a long ride for them.

Not really that excited about the skiing on Friday but the warm up over the weekend should make things at least ok.
 
108 opened today which saves people from the SF Bay Area about 90 miles compared to going past Kirkowod or through So. Lake Tahoe.
 
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