Mammoth, CA - President's Weekend 2011 (PoV Video)

[Skiace]

I drove up Thursday night in anticipation of epic days starting Friday, and the effort was handsomely rewarded. By Friday morning Mammoth had ~2 feet of fresh with ZERO wind overnight and all day. The storm was also fairly cold, so as you can see below conditions were deep. The sky was clear for several hours on Friday, and for a short time we thought the top might open, but the second system moved in too fast and started dumping snow again. Spent the morning on 22, and the afternoon on 9 when it opened around 1:30. Saturday brought two more feet and with it the thundering hordes, so there were fewer laps before things were tracked out. The wind also picked up a bit Saturday, but it didn't hurt the snow much. Sunday dawned bluebird and the top opened to a feeding frenzy. Highlights from all three days are below.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU9MHU-bJAU[/youtube]

 

[Aukai]

Nice vid, nice lines! I was there Thursday through Saturday. I have no pics, as I stupidly forgot to charge my camera, which died after a single parking lot shot.

Friday was one of the better days of my entire snowboarding career. Highlights were getting the first set of chairs under sunny skies when 5 opened (epic, epic face shots), and getting the goods in the Chair 12 area for the rest of the morning with just a handful of people over there.

But for me, the best part of the day came after patrol bombed and ski cut the runs from the top, and opened the backside of 3 and 5 (along with 9) as the weather unfortunately rolled back in. It seemed everyone beelined for the chair 9 area at that point (which I almost did as well), but I thought the St. Anton area might be an empty and glorious powderfield, which it was indeed. So we kept taking laps off the back of 3, traversing across to the apron of the Drop Outs, and getting the entire area below that all afternoon. Very few people were over there, and it was just incredible.

Snow quality Friday was just amazing- true Utah blower. After Friday, the heavier snow, windier weather, and significant crowds on Saturday were a bit of a downer, but plenty of great snow was still there to be had. I hated having to leave knowing the top would open the next day, but the goods had been got, we knew the opening would be a frenzy, and we were very, very satisfied.

Patrol was SO close to opening the top Friday... if that weather had just held off another hour it would have been all time... I appreciate how hard they tried, knowing that they might not beat the incoming weather.