Mammoth Mountain Snowman on Facebook

baldyskier

Member
From a Google search for more info on Mammoth current conditions (before some of the recent valuable posts here), I discovered Mammoth Mountain Snowman on Facebook. It's a private FB group administrated by Mammoth Snowman (Steve Taylor) and his kids. They seem to grant requests to join in a day or two. I find the group to be informative, although I get the feeling that it is tightly monitored to keep any perceived negativity toward Mammoth off limits. I posted a question asking if there was any similar such group for info on Squaw Valley, and got some responses, half of which were along the lines of "Traitor!". I posted something brief about SLC powder, then dropped the non-Mammoth subject. A couple days later I found my access to the group was gone. I asked to join again and was let in. Go figure.

Yesterday someone asked about snow being moved away from Canyons Lodge, and another person said it was likely to make better access for upcoming construction. I made an innocuous comment that tons of snow can actually be a problem at times. That post disappeared, as far as I can tell.

My advice is to join the group if you want timely Mammoth info, but be careful what you post, and realize that what is there may not include negative realities.

Makes me wonder if Mammothsnowman is somehow paid by Mammoth for his promotion of the area, or if he needs to keep it happy to keep heat from coming on him from Mammoth?
 
I know nothing about Mammoth Snowman's FB group but I have his website http://www.mammothsnowman.com/ on my list of informative ski reports http://bestsnow.net/snowrpts.htm

I think Snowman's narrative reports on that site and particularly his extensive pictures accompanying them are accurate and candid. He has links on that site to a weather forecaster, which tseeb cited recently. I've definitely seen warnings about low tide conditions in early season or drought years, and also about challenging surfaces from refrozen snow or upslope winds. He's a big fan and promoter of spring skiing like we have now, but then so am I.

I doubt Snowman is paid by Mammoth but I'm sure he doesn't want to annoy them either. During the drought years Mammoth took a lot of flak about layoffs, speculated changes in policy and particularly the one year closing of June Mt. I was very active on Mammoth Forum during that time, usually but not always supportive of management. I was outspokenly critical of the private equity financial structure that created cash flow stress during the inevitable Sierra drought seasons. Management occasionally responded to me directly, and they were not offended by my critiques as they that thought I was overall fair.

In general I'm not much of a fan of Facebook and rarely post original content there. I look at other people's posts/pics and occasionally comment. I do not think FB is nearly as good a platform for ski info as ski forums or independent sites like Snowman's.

http://easternsierraforum.com is the residue of the Mammoth Forum that was linked to Mammoth's webpage. In 2014 Mammoth decided to cut the link and no longer administer/support the forum. They did not kill the forum but it is closed to new entrants in order to prevent spam attacks. If you were already registered, you can continue to make new posts.
 
I joined the Mammoth Snowman page recently to see what was going on with Steve's move to Bishop which was due to his wife's medical condition requiring her to live at lower altitude. My request to join was handled very quickly, but I don't post much at FB and have never posted in group.

Not sure which is best page for late season conditions at Squaw. https://www.facebook.com/squawdoesntcare/ has not been active lately. There used to be unofficial Alpine page, but http://unofficialalpine.com has not been updated for almost two years and last message is "The End of the Road". But I just noticed it has link to http://www.unofficialsqualpine.com/ (last update April 21)

I think https://unofficialnetworks.com/category ... ons/squaw/ used to be much better for current info.

You could also look at latest posts at: https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/sho ... HER-THREAD (currently has 158 pages with 25 posts per page) and https://www.pugski.com/threads/2018-19- ... read.11450 (140 pages with 20 posts per page) which cover all of Tahoe region including backcountry at TGR.
 
Tony Crocker":32hga9yh said:
I do not think FB is nearly as good a platform for ski info as ski forums or independent sites like Snowman's.
Facebook was never designed to support information or reference material. It's strictly for sharing thoughts, images, et al in the moment. It's also designed to keep users on the site for as long as possible in order to serve as many targeted ads as possible. FB is a data and ad serving company and since it's free for users, users are the product. In the process of all this they've discovered that outrage and anger are far more powerful at accomplishing those goals than acting as an information repository.

And cats. It's great for sharing pictures of cats.
 
It's sad (at least to me, not a millennial) that forums have become an endangered species; however, that's as good an explanation as any: they don't deliver as many targeted ads + they don't channel anger and outrage like FB/Twitter/Instagram. Or one enables the other.
 
I've never been a big fan of Steve (we had some tiffs back in the RSN and early MM forum days), but he's always done a good job in regards to posting info on Mammoth. He used to be more outspoken on conditions and other things Mammoth, but these days... it's quite risky to be negative/opinionated, especially in a small town.

On a personal note, we sorta made up many years ago, and I wish him the best with his family in Bishop.
 
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