Mammoth, CA - 2.26.11 (PoV)

[Skiace]

Because of a series of late meetings last Friday evening, I didn't even leave San Diego for LA until after 6pm. I got some sleep and awoke at 3am Saturday morning to meet a couple friends for a ride up to Mammoth. The early effort was rewarded, as the day dawned bluebird. My friends were slow leaving in the morning, so we didn't get to the hill until about 9am, thus I missed the first shots at Chair 22. However the top opened about 11, and when it was tracked the Tail provided plenty of fresh until my legs were shot. Ended the day just shy of 20k vert, with at least 2/3rd's of that powder.

This storm was supposed to come in even colder than the one President's Day weekend, but it seemed to be about the same. Not exactly something to complain about however, as evidence below shows:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn31o-UDEkA[/youtube]

Sunday temps were into the low 40's at Main by mid day, and of course everything was tracked out from the day before, so we skied the morning and hit the road early to get home.

 

[Staley]

Saturday was really excellent, but crowded as well. I got to the mountain a bit late as well, so instead of waiting in line for 22, we went to Chair 10 and hikes up the back. I didn't quite beat the first Chair 22 people to the top of Lincoln, so I stopped at Avy 3 and still got fresh tracks.

Later, I got first tracks down West Bowl, which was perfectly smooth. I was able to straightline the whole run without feeling a single ripple in the snow. I then messed up my lift strategy and ended up waiting 40 minutes at the mid-station since they were loading every gondola at the bottom. My only untracked run off the top was Head Chutes to a Wazoo Chute. At that point, it was total white out and the traverse was completely scoured, so it was a bit scary on the reverse/reverse skis. I found an unbelievable line down Wazoo though that was definitely the deepest of the day. It was about a 10-foot wide path of powder surrounded by avi debris on both sides, but at least waist-chest deep and untracked at 1:15. As Adam said, Dragon's Tail was really good, but kind of tracked. I found some less-tracked snow by going to the end of the Tail, but it seems I'm getting really picky about my powder.

On Sunday, I found some ancient, 99cm snowblades and generally made a fool of myself. I figured them out after a run or so and skied Wipeout 1 a few times, which was phenomenal. Soft bumps at the top and great in the apron. I made sure to stick to the lift line for additional heckling. Later, I totally slayed P4 to Philippe's, got challenged to a race by a patroller (I passed on that one...), and told the entire Chair 23 line that I was the best snowlerblader on the mountain, which I followed up with dropping a glove and falling off the lift. All in all, I had way more fun that I thought would be possible in 2 hours of snowblading.

Here are the pictures to prove I actually used snow blades:

The instruments on slayage

Wipeout 1

P4

Philippe's