The mountain budgeted for 5601 skiers/riders, and 8844 showed up, 58% more than expected!
Thankfully, Memorial Day weekend attendance at Mammoth has usually been strong, so I think it's very unlikely it will ever go the way of Mt. Bachelor. There are also other attractions that draw people to the Eastern Sierra for Memorial weekend: Mule Days in Bishop and it's the most common opening weekend for Tioga Pass with Yosemite waterfalls typically near their peak flow.
Really is true that its mostly pass holders as the season starts to wind down.
This may lend some insight into the new stated policy that there must be skiable snow to the Main Lodge for Mammoth to remain open. From my perspective, the top runs are most interesting and have the best snow late season, plus the ski area has to do more work to maintain strips to chair 1, but that's probably an opinion mostly shared by the pass holders. The day ticket buyers (marginal revenue) may be more likely to be intermediates who will be dissuaded if there are no lower runs open. I know that would be Andrew's opinion. He was quite pleased with the runs on chairs 1 & 2 and did not snowboard any higher up.
I could be wrong, but I thought that digital camera CCDs were prone to damage from anything more than momentary exposure to pointing directly at the sun.
The brightness of the sun's corona during totality is similar to a full moon.
So the key issue is not too much light but too little. You need a tripod or else IS and not too slow a shutter speed. Ship movement will add an extra challenge. Thus most of the photography buffs will take their chances on land this July 22 in mainland China despite oppressive humidity, poorer weather odds and shorter totality. Pictures of a partially eclipsed sun do require a solar filter.
