I left Claremont at 4:45 am on Friday and was skiing by 9:50, not too bad. There was some nice wind buff up top, especially on Dave's. Around noon, the top got really socked in and the winds picked up. I'm not exactly sure when they closed the top, but I got stuck on top of Dave's with such bad whiteout that I couldn't tell if I was moving or even standing upright. I made a beeline for Dragon's Back and its trees and found some unexpected sections of untracked snow. The snow started to pick up, and by 2pm, it was making a real difference. I went over to Broadway and started to ski Baby Gravy, which often seems to get more than its fair share of snow at the beginning of storms. It did not disappoint, as ended up skiing about 6 inches of untracked around that area for the rest of the afternoon. I finished my runs on the race courses that no one had skied. Here, 4 inches on top of corduroy made for some really fun skiing. I managed to do 15 laps of Broadway and 2 of Stump Alley in 2 hours, all untracked. My final run in the trees next to Roger's Ridge even offered a face shot.
It snowed 3+ inches per hour most of the night, and with Mammoth sure to have crowds and not open the top, I headed to June. Due to chain issues, I arrived really late and the bottom area was mostly tracked out. However, I was one of the first people up J7, and faceshots ensued. June received at least 2 feet overnight and the snow wasn't heavy (although it definitely wasn't Utah powder). I took a few untracked laps on J7 and then moved to J6 for some sidecountry. For the rest of the day, I skied completely untracked runs where most were faceshots every turn. I took one sidecountry run that required a long traverse followed by a 10 minute bootpack that led to about a 40 foot wide path through the trees down to the road. I don't think this had been skied all week, as it was consistently chest deep for about 2000 feet of vertical. This very well may have been the greatest run of my life, although I saw very little of it. The snow was above my head the entire time. Unfortunately, this run took me farther away from the base than I wanted, so I had to walk along the road for almost an hour to get back to the parking lot.
Sunday was back to Mammoth for the opening of the top. I lapped the lower gondola hoping to get lucky and reach the top quickly without camping out at McCoy. Around 10:30, I spied some patrollers walking into the bottom station and I waited a bit to load one car behind them. My plan paid off and I ended up on the first gondola to the top. Since I started at the bottom, I grabbed the seat closest to the door and I was first off at the top. Climax was remarkably not wind affected and the first run was amazing. I only made 8 turns all the way down, and then straightlined the runout trying to get back to McCoy as soon as possible. The wait at McCoy wasn't bad and I was able to get 2 more untracked runs on Climax before getting 1 more each on Rock Garden and Dave's. I skied various lines off the top for the rest of the day. P4 was especially soft despite being completely tracked up. I was completely exhausted by 2, so I quit then and made it back to Claremont by 7:30.
On a side note, for Saturday and Sunday, I got to ski my newly purchased Praxis Powder RX. They aren't reverse camber nor do they have a ton of tip and tail rocker, but coming from my 161cm skinny skis, they were simply mind-blowing in powder. I struggled a bit with the huge radius in tight trees, but on open areas of untracked, I was able to ski incredibly fast and still be in control.
The truth about powder skis :wink: is they make a bigger difference than you can possibly imagine.
It snowed 3+ inches per hour most of the night, and with Mammoth sure to have crowds and not open the top, I headed to June. Due to chain issues, I arrived really late and the bottom area was mostly tracked out. However, I was one of the first people up J7, and faceshots ensued. June received at least 2 feet overnight and the snow wasn't heavy (although it definitely wasn't Utah powder). I took a few untracked laps on J7 and then moved to J6 for some sidecountry. For the rest of the day, I skied completely untracked runs where most were faceshots every turn. I took one sidecountry run that required a long traverse followed by a 10 minute bootpack that led to about a 40 foot wide path through the trees down to the road. I don't think this had been skied all week, as it was consistently chest deep for about 2000 feet of vertical. This very well may have been the greatest run of my life, although I saw very little of it. The snow was above my head the entire time. Unfortunately, this run took me farther away from the base than I wanted, so I had to walk along the road for almost an hour to get back to the parking lot.
Sunday was back to Mammoth for the opening of the top. I lapped the lower gondola hoping to get lucky and reach the top quickly without camping out at McCoy. Around 10:30, I spied some patrollers walking into the bottom station and I waited a bit to load one car behind them. My plan paid off and I ended up on the first gondola to the top. Since I started at the bottom, I grabbed the seat closest to the door and I was first off at the top. Climax was remarkably not wind affected and the first run was amazing. I only made 8 turns all the way down, and then straightlined the runout trying to get back to McCoy as soon as possible. The wait at McCoy wasn't bad and I was able to get 2 more untracked runs on Climax before getting 1 more each on Rock Garden and Dave's. I skied various lines off the top for the rest of the day. P4 was especially soft despite being completely tracked up. I was completely exhausted by 2, so I quit then and made it back to Claremont by 7:30.
On a side note, for Saturday and Sunday, I got to ski my newly purchased Praxis Powder RX. They aren't reverse camber nor do they have a ton of tip and tail rocker, but coming from my 161cm skinny skis, they were simply mind-blowing in powder. I struggled a bit with the huge radius in tight trees, but on open areas of untracked, I was able to ski incredibly fast and still be in control.
The truth about powder skis :wink: is they make a bigger difference than you can possibly imagine.
