Mammoth had a fairly steady diet in May of the abnormally cold weather Admin reported Saturday, supposedly coldest May on record in parts of California. Most of the 18 inches of new snow in May came in dribs and drabs, so the locals were not too pleased with conditions. Fortunately the month ended on a more pleasant note. Thursday's final storm was 5 inches of Sierra Cement, which covered the underlying snow well in most places. Friday remained cold and the top opened around noon. Our first day Saturday was the start of the long delayed spring warm-up. The good news is that the base has hardly dropped at at all since I was last at Mammoth 6 weeks earlier. Here's the Main Lodge with the sundeck still accessible from the snow.
At mid-station the snowpack is even with the top of the stairs, same as 6 weeks ago and late May of 2006. July 4th should be similar to 4 and 5 years ago as the unusually cold spring has offset the lower water content of this year's snowpack vs. those seasons.
Adam and I arrived at the chair 2 parking lot about 8:30AM but it was already full and we parked across the road. By late morning the parking was all the way down to Chair 4, and fortunately Mammoth anticipated the crowd and ran Chair 4 Saturday and Sunday as well as the previously announced additions of chairs 5 and 10. Although there were lots of tracks from Friday afternoon we headed up the gondola to check out Thursday's new snow. This day proved to be a thorough test of the Black Diamond Verdicts I had just used for a few runs in April. The snow in the morning was still dry winter snow, but it was very thick with tracks and also some wind effect. The Verdicts handled this snow well as long as you made rounded turns and kept your speed up. But with the effort required I would run often out of breath and have to take a break or two.
We started with the gondola and Dave's run as 23 wasn't open yet, then down to chair 5, which had not been running for a few weeks though most of its terrain was accessible. Next time up Chair 2, 23 was open so we skied Wipe Out. The steep upper part was soft packed powder, but lower down enough of it had been skied that I would occasionally hit the old hard snow underneath. Adam was skiing fast enough that he rarely came in contact with the hardpacked base. Next time up 23 we headed out to Paranoid 2, which skied somewhat softer due to less traffic.
When we were on Chair 5 Adam had spied some skiers in Heuvos Grande and wanted to go back there to check it out. Huevos is the last notch opening at left center. Later we saw a few people thread their way through some narrow openings in Top of the World at upper right.
Adam skiing Huevos Grande.
Snow was stiff on the steep upper section but thick powder below that. We skied similar snow through Dry Creek. Adam wanted an encore, but my legs were screaming so I took a mellower line through Rockgarden while he hit Huevos again. At this point I needed to ski a couple of groomers before we took a last shot at May chowder on Roger's Ridge before meeting some Mammoth Forum people at the Mill Cafe (base of Chairs 2 & 10) for lunch at noon.
After lunch I skied with a couple of the Mammoth Forum people while Adam skied with his friends who had partied into the wee hours and were late getting on the hill. Two more runs on chair 23: Drop Out was mostly soft packed powder, and Monument was my last shot at less consolidated snow for the day. The mid and lower mountain had all softened in the high sun (temps in upper 40's) but skiing was still good to the closing bell (3PM, take note Mt. Bachelor :stir: ) on runs with less traffic such as Terry's and the race course runs under Chair 1. I met Adam and went up the gondola one last time. Here he drops into Hangman's:
His turns above the throat were quite noisy, so I took the easy way down Cornice given both my fatigue and that the Verdicts much prefer softer snow. Final run of the day in still not sticky spring snow was Christmas/Coyote. 25,200 vertical including about 2K of new Sierra Cement.
Saturday at ~5:30 several of us from Mammoth Forum met for dinner at the Whoa Nellie Deli (open late April through October), which is in the Mobil station at the intersection of Hwy 395 and the Tioga Road into Yosemite. Not like any gas station food you've ever seen before (pics bottom of first page): http://forums.mammothmountain.com/viewt ... =14&t=7264. Don't miss this if you take a daytrip from Mammoth to Yosemite or Mono Lake.
Sunday and Monday were in full spring mode. We were on the hill at 8:45 but needed to stay on the groomers until the off-trail stuff softened. Even the upper part of Stump Alley was firm on the first run. Fortunately we had noticed Chair 4 open the day before so we headed over there, where the 2 groomers were already in corn mode by 9AM. After 3 more groomers on Chairs 3 and 5 we met a large contingent of the Mammoth Forum, who were skiing in "retro" costume for the Chair 2 parking lot potluck at 2PM. Here's one of the group photos at the top of the mountain.
I was not planning to do a lot of runs from the top as my legs were still fatigued and I knew a lot of the snow would be in that awkward stage between powder and skier packed spring conditions. But I recalled from 1995 that if there's enough snowpack the backside can have some excellent corn cruising. Some of the other Forum people had the same thought so several of us headed down Roadrunner. At 10:30 the upper off-piste was still firm though smooth enough to ski OK while Roadrunner itself was in peak corn mode. We stopped partway down Roadrunner to admire the view plus a lone track that had tempted somebody below the road into a sector that requires hiking out.
I knew that the off trail was going to improve and thus took 2 more laps. Here's the deserted upper snowfield that was at its best around noon:
I had learned from local Lance Meyer back in 1980 that it's possible to drop below part of the Roadrunner boundary for a short section of pristine corn, then hit a moderate Alta-type traverse to merge back to the road lower down. Here's the view back to a few tracks in that corn:
With the warming weather and busy holiday traffic the snow got heavy earlier than on Saturday. They were out grooming and salting though, and I was fortunate to hit St. Anton right after the groomer had made a pass. However, I was tired and quit at 1:30 after 20,600 vertical to help set up the potluck. Posts and pictures from the potluck start on page 18 of this thread: http://forums.mammothmountain.com/viewt ... &start=255. We left about 4PM and I went back to Adam's ski house and I took a 3+ hour nap.
Monday was typical great Mammoth spring skiing. About 2/3 of the holiday visitors don't ski the last day, so the snow stays good longer with the greatly reduced traffic. Also, up top a lot of the chowder had been skier packed on Sunday. After the usual early morning cruisers we met a much smaller Mammoth Forum group at 10AM. We skied Climax, and then only Christian, who is in school at UC Santa Cruz, skied with us after that. Next was a nicely smoothed out Dave's Run, and since it was around 11AM I then decided to show our northern California visitor the backside corn run. Then we took our last upper run on Drop Out 2 from Chair 23:
I cut skier's left below that to the top of the course through Gremlin's Gulch where the racers had just finished. Here's the top of the course about 11:30 where I'm about to hit the barely touched corn:
For the park aficionados, Mammoth built a jump with an air mattress landing for people to try out their new tricks. I think they charged a flat $40 signup fee to use it while it was open from May 21-31.
I was off the hill by noon after another 16,700 vertical and home by 6PM. Christian and his dad were staying for Tuesday also as tseeb had originally planned. I'm sure they would say that the extra drive was well worth it vs. the limited slop at Squaw and Donner. FYI Sonora Pass but not Tioga opened over the weekend.
At mid-station the snowpack is even with the top of the stairs, same as 6 weeks ago and late May of 2006. July 4th should be similar to 4 and 5 years ago as the unusually cold spring has offset the lower water content of this year's snowpack vs. those seasons.
Adam and I arrived at the chair 2 parking lot about 8:30AM but it was already full and we parked across the road. By late morning the parking was all the way down to Chair 4, and fortunately Mammoth anticipated the crowd and ran Chair 4 Saturday and Sunday as well as the previously announced additions of chairs 5 and 10. Although there were lots of tracks from Friday afternoon we headed up the gondola to check out Thursday's new snow. This day proved to be a thorough test of the Black Diamond Verdicts I had just used for a few runs in April. The snow in the morning was still dry winter snow, but it was very thick with tracks and also some wind effect. The Verdicts handled this snow well as long as you made rounded turns and kept your speed up. But with the effort required I would run often out of breath and have to take a break or two.
We started with the gondola and Dave's run as 23 wasn't open yet, then down to chair 5, which had not been running for a few weeks though most of its terrain was accessible. Next time up Chair 2, 23 was open so we skied Wipe Out. The steep upper part was soft packed powder, but lower down enough of it had been skied that I would occasionally hit the old hard snow underneath. Adam was skiing fast enough that he rarely came in contact with the hardpacked base. Next time up 23 we headed out to Paranoid 2, which skied somewhat softer due to less traffic.
When we were on Chair 5 Adam had spied some skiers in Heuvos Grande and wanted to go back there to check it out. Huevos is the last notch opening at left center. Later we saw a few people thread their way through some narrow openings in Top of the World at upper right.
Adam skiing Huevos Grande.
Snow was stiff on the steep upper section but thick powder below that. We skied similar snow through Dry Creek. Adam wanted an encore, but my legs were screaming so I took a mellower line through Rockgarden while he hit Huevos again. At this point I needed to ski a couple of groomers before we took a last shot at May chowder on Roger's Ridge before meeting some Mammoth Forum people at the Mill Cafe (base of Chairs 2 & 10) for lunch at noon.
After lunch I skied with a couple of the Mammoth Forum people while Adam skied with his friends who had partied into the wee hours and were late getting on the hill. Two more runs on chair 23: Drop Out was mostly soft packed powder, and Monument was my last shot at less consolidated snow for the day. The mid and lower mountain had all softened in the high sun (temps in upper 40's) but skiing was still good to the closing bell (3PM, take note Mt. Bachelor :stir: ) on runs with less traffic such as Terry's and the race course runs under Chair 1. I met Adam and went up the gondola one last time. Here he drops into Hangman's:
His turns above the throat were quite noisy, so I took the easy way down Cornice given both my fatigue and that the Verdicts much prefer softer snow. Final run of the day in still not sticky spring snow was Christmas/Coyote. 25,200 vertical including about 2K of new Sierra Cement.
Saturday at ~5:30 several of us from Mammoth Forum met for dinner at the Whoa Nellie Deli (open late April through October), which is in the Mobil station at the intersection of Hwy 395 and the Tioga Road into Yosemite. Not like any gas station food you've ever seen before (pics bottom of first page): http://forums.mammothmountain.com/viewt ... =14&t=7264. Don't miss this if you take a daytrip from Mammoth to Yosemite or Mono Lake.
Sunday and Monday were in full spring mode. We were on the hill at 8:45 but needed to stay on the groomers until the off-trail stuff softened. Even the upper part of Stump Alley was firm on the first run. Fortunately we had noticed Chair 4 open the day before so we headed over there, where the 2 groomers were already in corn mode by 9AM. After 3 more groomers on Chairs 3 and 5 we met a large contingent of the Mammoth Forum, who were skiing in "retro" costume for the Chair 2 parking lot potluck at 2PM. Here's one of the group photos at the top of the mountain.
I was not planning to do a lot of runs from the top as my legs were still fatigued and I knew a lot of the snow would be in that awkward stage between powder and skier packed spring conditions. But I recalled from 1995 that if there's enough snowpack the backside can have some excellent corn cruising. Some of the other Forum people had the same thought so several of us headed down Roadrunner. At 10:30 the upper off-piste was still firm though smooth enough to ski OK while Roadrunner itself was in peak corn mode. We stopped partway down Roadrunner to admire the view plus a lone track that had tempted somebody below the road into a sector that requires hiking out.
I knew that the off trail was going to improve and thus took 2 more laps. Here's the deserted upper snowfield that was at its best around noon:
I had learned from local Lance Meyer back in 1980 that it's possible to drop below part of the Roadrunner boundary for a short section of pristine corn, then hit a moderate Alta-type traverse to merge back to the road lower down. Here's the view back to a few tracks in that corn:
With the warming weather and busy holiday traffic the snow got heavy earlier than on Saturday. They were out grooming and salting though, and I was fortunate to hit St. Anton right after the groomer had made a pass. However, I was tired and quit at 1:30 after 20,600 vertical to help set up the potluck. Posts and pictures from the potluck start on page 18 of this thread: http://forums.mammothmountain.com/viewt ... &start=255. We left about 4PM and I went back to Adam's ski house and I took a 3+ hour nap.
Monday was typical great Mammoth spring skiing. About 2/3 of the holiday visitors don't ski the last day, so the snow stays good longer with the greatly reduced traffic. Also, up top a lot of the chowder had been skier packed on Sunday. After the usual early morning cruisers we met a much smaller Mammoth Forum group at 10AM. We skied Climax, and then only Christian, who is in school at UC Santa Cruz, skied with us after that. Next was a nicely smoothed out Dave's Run, and since it was around 11AM I then decided to show our northern California visitor the backside corn run. Then we took our last upper run on Drop Out 2 from Chair 23:
I cut skier's left below that to the top of the course through Gremlin's Gulch where the racers had just finished. Here's the top of the course about 11:30 where I'm about to hit the barely touched corn:
For the park aficionados, Mammoth built a jump with an air mattress landing for people to try out their new tricks. I think they charged a flat $40 signup fee to use it while it was open from May 21-31.
I was off the hill by noon after another 16,700 vertical and home by 6PM. Christian and his dad were staying for Tuesday also as tseeb had originally planned. I'm sure they would say that the extra drive was well worth it vs. the limited slop at Squaw and Donner. FYI Sonora Pass but not Tioga opened over the weekend.
