I watched the recent storm closely and decided to come to Mammoth once it was over. After the last big shot Sunday it cleared out and the upper mountain was opened midday Monday. I missed that but as with many Mammoth storms the wind was violent and the new snow more wind-packed than deep powder. Total snow over 4 days was 53 inches near Main Lodge with a few hours rain Sunday, and likely 6+ feet above 10,000 feet.
Dec. 4
Chairs 12-14 were not opened Monday, so after a couple of warmups Liz and I headed for chair 12 just after 9AM. First run there:
A close look at the trees shows encrusted ice, reminiscent of a few Baldy days. So the snow had a zipper crust and forceful unweighting was needed to make turns, particularly in the trees. So we then left Chair 12 via Bark Bowl.
Thus we realized the top was the place to be. We started with Dave's Run. Check out the rime on this satellite dish!
Great windbuff and windsift on Dave's:
Oddly, the mellower Roma's, just skier's right of Dave's, slid.
We then took a couple of laps on Chair 5. Best snow was in Triangle.
Next run up top was Climax. The usually popular line skier's left had huge debris chunks.
Best skiing was near skier's right.
Far skier's right was wind blown with some sastrugi.
Next gondola up I had to check out Hangman's. The top wind drift is set back about 30 feet from its usual location dropping straight into the throat. Below the wind drift there's a mellow start into a convex rollover dropping out of view. There were small rocks in the throat where I had to make some one-at-a-time turns. Only pic is from below.
From that spot I took a pic towards Cornice, where Liz was skiing.
After lunch we skied mostly on 23. All of the Drop Out/Wipe Out variations had great wind buff/sift lines. The snow was so forgiving I did a couple of them nonstop, which is rare for me first day at Mammoth, much less first day of the season. The Wipe Outs:
Liz on Drop Out 1:
Apron below Drop Out 3
My last run was nonstop Wipe out 1 down to St. Anton. Going up Chair 1 we decided to do Gravy Chute before heading to the car.
Liz could not bring skis on this trip because she brought scuba gear for the Australia dive boat. She was on the Blizzard Samba 166cm on Tuesday and loved the ski from the first run. It's 98 underfoot with a fair amount of tip rocker and just a slightly upturned tail. We thought it would be more of a powder day, but the Samba was great despite being mostly packed snow. A very versatile ski. We skied 23,900 vertical, a very high quality opening day.
Dec. 5
There was one last shot to the subtropical weather pattern. We heard the wind and did not get out the door until nearly 9:30 for what we expected to be the worst day of the trip. But when we got to the mountain the winds were moderate and the top was open. We did one warmup on Broadway, then headed up the gondola just as it started to snow. The cloud lowered onto the mountain and when we exited we were informed the top would be closing. Liz nixed my original plan for Climax, just as well because the run down Cornice was one of the most vertiginous I've done in a long time. I fell off a lip getting in and lost orientation a couple of other times.
In this situation one often retreats to the Canyon Lodge area to escape weather but it does not open until Friday. We took a couple of runs on Chair 4, tested the trees in that area and found the same crust as the day before on 12 to no surprise. We went into the Mill for an early lunch. Liz had a new demo, the Nordica Nemesis 161cm. and we planned to take them over to Gravy Chute after lunch since the top was closed.
But when we came out of lunch the snow had turned to rain at 8,800 ft. I figured we needed to get above the rain/snow line and our best shot with at least some visibility was chair 5. This was a great call as the new heavy snow was filling in and with the wet weather hardly anyone was there. We're glad 5 was upgraded to high speed because we got 5 runs in before our clothing got saturated and we decided to call it a day at 2PM with 3 more good weather days predicted ahead. Triangle, Sanctuary and Sliver were all good, but the last 2 runs on Face of 5 had the softest snow with not a track in sight.
Coming back to the car the snow was very grabby on lower Comeback and Easy Rider, so the rain had persisted below 9,000 feet for awhile. When Canyon/Eagle open on Friday it will be best to stick to the groomers over there at the lower elevations. But I expect the upper mountain to be at least as good the next few days as it was Tuesday.
The Nordica Nemesis is also 98 underfoot but with a flat tail. Liz liked it but not as much as the Blizzard Samba. We skied 13,000 vertical on a short day with no pics due to bad weather and visibility. I was in goggles after 10AM for the rest of the day.
Dec. 4
Chairs 12-14 were not opened Monday, so after a couple of warmups Liz and I headed for chair 12 just after 9AM. First run there:
A close look at the trees shows encrusted ice, reminiscent of a few Baldy days. So the snow had a zipper crust and forceful unweighting was needed to make turns, particularly in the trees. So we then left Chair 12 via Bark Bowl.
Thus we realized the top was the place to be. We started with Dave's Run. Check out the rime on this satellite dish!
Great windbuff and windsift on Dave's:
Oddly, the mellower Roma's, just skier's right of Dave's, slid.
We then took a couple of laps on Chair 5. Best snow was in Triangle.
Next run up top was Climax. The usually popular line skier's left had huge debris chunks.
Best skiing was near skier's right.
Far skier's right was wind blown with some sastrugi.
Next gondola up I had to check out Hangman's. The top wind drift is set back about 30 feet from its usual location dropping straight into the throat. Below the wind drift there's a mellow start into a convex rollover dropping out of view. There were small rocks in the throat where I had to make some one-at-a-time turns. Only pic is from below.
From that spot I took a pic towards Cornice, where Liz was skiing.
After lunch we skied mostly on 23. All of the Drop Out/Wipe Out variations had great wind buff/sift lines. The snow was so forgiving I did a couple of them nonstop, which is rare for me first day at Mammoth, much less first day of the season. The Wipe Outs:
Liz on Drop Out 1:
Apron below Drop Out 3
My last run was nonstop Wipe out 1 down to St. Anton. Going up Chair 1 we decided to do Gravy Chute before heading to the car.
Liz could not bring skis on this trip because she brought scuba gear for the Australia dive boat. She was on the Blizzard Samba 166cm on Tuesday and loved the ski from the first run. It's 98 underfoot with a fair amount of tip rocker and just a slightly upturned tail. We thought it would be more of a powder day, but the Samba was great despite being mostly packed snow. A very versatile ski. We skied 23,900 vertical, a very high quality opening day.
Dec. 5
There was one last shot to the subtropical weather pattern. We heard the wind and did not get out the door until nearly 9:30 for what we expected to be the worst day of the trip. But when we got to the mountain the winds were moderate and the top was open. We did one warmup on Broadway, then headed up the gondola just as it started to snow. The cloud lowered onto the mountain and when we exited we were informed the top would be closing. Liz nixed my original plan for Climax, just as well because the run down Cornice was one of the most vertiginous I've done in a long time. I fell off a lip getting in and lost orientation a couple of other times.
In this situation one often retreats to the Canyon Lodge area to escape weather but it does not open until Friday. We took a couple of runs on Chair 4, tested the trees in that area and found the same crust as the day before on 12 to no surprise. We went into the Mill for an early lunch. Liz had a new demo, the Nordica Nemesis 161cm. and we planned to take them over to Gravy Chute after lunch since the top was closed.
But when we came out of lunch the snow had turned to rain at 8,800 ft. I figured we needed to get above the rain/snow line and our best shot with at least some visibility was chair 5. This was a great call as the new heavy snow was filling in and with the wet weather hardly anyone was there. We're glad 5 was upgraded to high speed because we got 5 runs in before our clothing got saturated and we decided to call it a day at 2PM with 3 more good weather days predicted ahead. Triangle, Sanctuary and Sliver were all good, but the last 2 runs on Face of 5 had the softest snow with not a track in sight.
Coming back to the car the snow was very grabby on lower Comeback and Easy Rider, so the rain had persisted below 9,000 feet for awhile. When Canyon/Eagle open on Friday it will be best to stick to the groomers over there at the lower elevations. But I expect the upper mountain to be at least as good the next few days as it was Tuesday.
The Nordica Nemesis is also 98 underfoot but with a flat tail. Liz liked it but not as much as the Blizzard Samba. We skied 13,000 vertical on a short day with no pics due to bad weather and visibility. I was in goggles after 10AM for the rest of the day.
/ I ran into Rusty at Main Lodge lunch on Dec. 6 and he looked pretty happy.