Mammoth, CA 5/27/2017

tseeb

Well-known member
For the second year in a row, my 2 Mountain Collective days at Mammoth were 5/27-28. This time my wife joined me. She did not get home from work until after 7 PM Friday and it was a little after 8 when we left San Jose. That worked well as most Memorial Day getaway traffic had cleared and we arrived South Lake Tahoe cabin,where I had left water turned on the previous Friday, just before midnight. My alarm went off a 4 AM and we were on the road at 4:45. After a gas stop in Minden, we arrived Mammoth a little before the 7:30 AM opening and found parking next to a motorhome at the Mill. After changing, confirming with snowhost that they could handle our MCP and at least a 15 minute wait in line, we got our passes and loaded chair 2 about 8:15.

We skied Stump Alley which was still firm except on sunnier far left from slight overnight freeze, then rode chair 10 and skied Quicksilver to lower Gold Hill. Snow was discolored and getting thin in places on that route to chair 9, which I don't think I've ever ridden before.
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We took two laps on chair 9, first skiing The Slot, where snow was good as it is less E-facing. Then my wife repeated an earlier run while I followed a patroller into Ricochet where I skied a smooth line of corn next to a rock band. We returned to McCoy station and found lower chair 3 run already getting soft.
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On her previous visit to Mammoth in late April 2005, my wife did not go to the top as it was cold, windy and snowed a little. We rode upper gondola, then took requisite pictures in front of sign
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at top where 230" base is reported and skied Cornice, where snow was good, but groomers had left some ridges between passess. I'm not sure we went after that, but know we returned to the top using both Chair 23, where we found path through rocks on softly closed Skyline and skied Scotty's, and upper gondola, which we used to ski Road Runner and lower Arriba to chair 14. I found a path that cut one of the big corners on Road Runner that barely went through a choke before widening into some good smooth corn. Others looked a it and declined.

We should have taken chair 13 and skied to and ridden chair 1, but had found a long line there on our last trip there, had never been on chair 14 and my wife did not want to ride more chairs than necessary. So we rode chair 14 and hiked to where we could enter Scotty's without going off cornice. Then we made long traverse across Wipeouts and Dropouts to get to and ski down Stump Alley. I returned to car to drop jacket and get hat, sunscreen and some drinks while my wife got some BBQ, which was not as good as I remembered from previous meal there. After sharing a 16 oz. can of Alvarado Street Citraveza and a 375 ml can of decent Oregon rose she stayed at the Mill, where a good DJ was playing.
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I went to the top where snow host did not recommend MJB, Hangman's or Varmint's as he said all the soft soft had been pushed out. I went toward Cornice, but did an early entrance and got into MJB and found it very good. Next runs, I skied Hangman's then Varmint's finding good lines and snow on less bumpy right sides.
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Then I took two laps on chair 23, first skiing run where I could return to lift, then skiing some of Wipeouts and pushing across top of Monument to top of Paranoid 3. I thought about going to look at Phillipe's,
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but snow looked and skied well enough that I continued down 3 before cutting between rocks to 2.
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I quit at close to 3 PM close with 26.5K. On the way to our motel, we stopped at very busy Mammoth Brewing and filled my growler with IPA 395 and sampled a couple of their other beers.
 
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