when your as freaking spoiled as some on f.t.o. any track or imperfection blows the whole run.(and ofcourse i'm not spoiled much)
Another point where I seem to share BobbyD's philosophy of skiing, though unfortunately not his ability.
With regard to skiable acreage, that works when you're comparing apples to apples. Steeper areas will give you more vertical variety within the same acreage as flatter areas. Unless the steeps have a lot of unskiable cliffs. Big Sky/Moonlight is Exhibit B of acreage overstating ski variety (I think Heavenly is Exhibit A). The lower mountain is quite flat and Lone Peak, while super steep, has a just a handful of skiable lines unless you're BASE jumping. I think Mammoth has more usable ski variety than Big Sky/Moonlight, and AltaBird a lot more. Vail has 5289 acres and unlike Big Sky it's nearly all usable. But Vail has average steepness while AltaBird is much steeper than average. So even there I think AltaBird has more ski variety than Vail. Whistler/Blackcomb is steeper than average; no question in my mind it is the largest ski complex in North America by a comfortable margin. But AltaBird is second IMHO.
As of right now all 3500 acres of Mammoth is accessible (probably only bout 95% now with coverage).
I think that's an overstatement. Anything on the Canyon/Chair 9 side would require a car shuttle and perhaps a bit of hiking to reach the road in some cases. About half of chair 14 terrain is skiable to Lower Roadrunner around to 12 or you'll be hiking out. I had great corn doing that back in 1995, but this year the upper part of that didn't get covered until February and most of it is gone now. I'd say there's about 2,000 now where you can ski back to a lift, but that does include all the steeps up top.
Yes, all but a few hundred of the 4,700 acres off Supreme are accessible by lift and traversing, or no more than a 5-minute hike that wouldn't be a hike during mid-winter ski season. Still 100% of all 4,700 acres with coverage.
Somewhat less of an overstatement. Is top of Gad 2 only a 5-minute hike? High Baldy to access Alta? The High Baldy traverse might take awhile on a snowboard. The Sugarloaf Pass access to get to most of Alta now has to be at least 15 minutes I would think. Unless you're an animal like salida. The High Baldy/Tombstone/Keyhole or Wildcat route is fairly straightforward sidecountry from Snowbird. The Yellow Trail/Backside/Greely Hill route takes much more work, and the schlep back to Snowbird would be quite tedious. I would certainly have stashed a car up at the Albion base if I were going to ski that. Or at Collins base for High Rustler. If on a snowboard, definitely put a car up at Alta to save a lot of grunt work.
Hah fixt.
Guess i need to get out of mammoth lakes more often.
14 days in Utah this season.
11 so far at Mammoth. We may get tired of it, but the Utards' provincial arrogance is supported by ample evidence. On average I would only prefer to be at Mammoth after April 15 or so.
