I was at Mammoth this week for the NASJA annual meeting. Liz and Garry Klassen both came along as guests. Garry had previously been my guest at the 2001 meeting in Big Sky and the 2004 meeting in Telluride. We were housed in the Village, first time I've stayed there. Thus for 3 days we took the village gondola up to Canyon Lodge and started and ended our ski days there.
Mammoth had a huge December but has had about 1/3 of normal snow since Jan. 1. Nearly all of the mountain went to spring conditions during the last half of March and again by last weekend per Adam's visit despite 8 inches over Easter weekend. A further complication was rain to the top of chair 1 (9,900 ft.) on April 5. I've been skiing during the first half of April at Mammoth in over 20 seasons, and in only one other year (2002) was there less winter snow/packed powder than during most of this trip.
We didn't ski Monday at Mammoth because of predicted 80+mph winds and no snow. Fortunately the weather forecasters were wrong and the strongest winds were 50-200 miles south where we had dust in the air during our drive. In one stretch between Lancaster and Mojave there was a 4-car pileup in the other side of the freeway in bad visibility and we were escorted through that stretch at low speed by the CHP. Mammoth picked up a welcome 2-4 inches from this disturbance.
April 9
It was a brisk 16 F when we started skiing Tuesday. There was an upslope wind (not the usual direction) so thus a fair amount of wind chill skiing groomers. Mammoth did its usual great grooming job and all morning the groomers were packed powder despite what had to be a difficult subsurface from the past week's weather. Liz and I went up to chair 5 to look for any wind drifted snow.
There were a few good spots like this but the new snow on the upper 1/3 or so of chair 5 was mostly blown off by the upslope wind.
The wind was very strong up top, perhaps as much as 60mph, visible here blowing off the top of Hangman's.
Gondola 2 was closed but chair 23 was open. Before lunch I ventured up there as Adam said Wipe Out had the only winter snow over the weekend. The top entrance looked tricky, so I traversed in from the Wipe Out 2 entrance into the teeth of that wind. I got down in a hurry despite now firm and not entirely smooth snow, with the wind having somewhat of a braking effect.
We met Garry and some more NASJA people at lunch at the Mill. For the afternoon we skied with Jim Vick from Lutsen and Midwest president Frida Waara and her husband Ron Thorley, all very strong skiers. There was some wind drifted snow off the back of 3 below Climax.
We skied Waterfall down to chair 5, and on our next lap I took them to The Bear. Ron coming out of the trees there.
It was partly sunny and I noticed that some of most sun exposed areas were softening. Garry had found some new snow off Gold Hill in the morning so we went over there.
Lower down the sunny groomers had turned to corn.
After another chair 9 run Liz, Frida and Ron called it a day while Garry, Jim and I went up chair 22. With likely firm snow we tested Avalanche 3 rather than the longer and steeper chutes on Lincoln Mt.
While conditions were far from Mammoth's usual overall April excellence, Garry and I did a reasonable job of finding the best places to show some of our more adventurous visitors. I skied 24,700 vertical. For the majority sticking to the groomers, conditions were excellent all day as it never got too warm.
Mammoth had a huge December but has had about 1/3 of normal snow since Jan. 1. Nearly all of the mountain went to spring conditions during the last half of March and again by last weekend per Adam's visit despite 8 inches over Easter weekend. A further complication was rain to the top of chair 1 (9,900 ft.) on April 5. I've been skiing during the first half of April at Mammoth in over 20 seasons, and in only one other year (2002) was there less winter snow/packed powder than during most of this trip.
We didn't ski Monday at Mammoth because of predicted 80+mph winds and no snow. Fortunately the weather forecasters were wrong and the strongest winds were 50-200 miles south where we had dust in the air during our drive. In one stretch between Lancaster and Mojave there was a 4-car pileup in the other side of the freeway in bad visibility and we were escorted through that stretch at low speed by the CHP. Mammoth picked up a welcome 2-4 inches from this disturbance.
April 9
It was a brisk 16 F when we started skiing Tuesday. There was an upslope wind (not the usual direction) so thus a fair amount of wind chill skiing groomers. Mammoth did its usual great grooming job and all morning the groomers were packed powder despite what had to be a difficult subsurface from the past week's weather. Liz and I went up to chair 5 to look for any wind drifted snow.
There were a few good spots like this but the new snow on the upper 1/3 or so of chair 5 was mostly blown off by the upslope wind.
The wind was very strong up top, perhaps as much as 60mph, visible here blowing off the top of Hangman's.
Gondola 2 was closed but chair 23 was open. Before lunch I ventured up there as Adam said Wipe Out had the only winter snow over the weekend. The top entrance looked tricky, so I traversed in from the Wipe Out 2 entrance into the teeth of that wind. I got down in a hurry despite now firm and not entirely smooth snow, with the wind having somewhat of a braking effect.
We met Garry and some more NASJA people at lunch at the Mill. For the afternoon we skied with Jim Vick from Lutsen and Midwest president Frida Waara and her husband Ron Thorley, all very strong skiers. There was some wind drifted snow off the back of 3 below Climax.
We skied Waterfall down to chair 5, and on our next lap I took them to The Bear. Ron coming out of the trees there.
It was partly sunny and I noticed that some of most sun exposed areas were softening. Garry had found some new snow off Gold Hill in the morning so we went over there.
Lower down the sunny groomers had turned to corn.
After another chair 9 run Liz, Frida and Ron called it a day while Garry, Jim and I went up chair 22. With likely firm snow we tested Avalanche 3 rather than the longer and steeper chutes on Lincoln Mt.
While conditions were far from Mammoth's usual overall April excellence, Garry and I did a reasonable job of finding the best places to show some of our more adventurous visitors. I skied 24,700 vertical. For the majority sticking to the groomers, conditions were excellent all day as it never got too warm.
