Will Mammoth bother to open in October 2025?

[ChrisC]

Is it enough like October 2004?

Do Private equity-owned ski areas even hire before October? It does not fit into a model.

Sorry, it has a generic brand: Alterra. Just looking at how much is spent on branding—I am sure that is a multi-100k name. It combines terrain and altitude.

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[Tony Crocker]

Is it enough like October 2004?

No. MMSA reports 6 inches at Main Lodge with another 3-7 expected. OpenSnow yesterday thought Mammoth would get 20 storm total. In 2004 there were 56 inches new snow third week of October and another 26 during the fourth week.

Do Private equity-owned ski areas even hire before October? It does not fit into a model.

Alterra says it lets the individual areas make these decisions. I have tracked the phasedown of lift operation in the spring/summer in minute detail and current philosophy (2017 and later) seems similar to the Dave McCoy years. Mammoth was lightly less aggressive in late season operations during the early Starwood years (2007-2013) when it was most leveraged.

I know a little about the seasonal employees because my son Andrew was one from Dec. 2020 - Apr. 2023. He showed up for training on Nov. 30 and was on duty about 2 weeks later. Most seasonal staff is laid off at the time of Canyon/Eagle closing, which is the later of: second weekend of April, and one week after Easter. They look for some volunteers among that seasonal staff to hang on though May, which Andrew did in 2021 and 2022.

Under Dave McCoy permanent employees are available to run lifts when conditions permit. In spring that generally means running extra lifts on weekends, particular Memorial day, to handle the crowds. Past Memorial Day I heard that grooming had to be cut back some because those employees can get lucrative summer construction jobs.

As for early season under Alterra, ChrisC must have forgotten about 4 years ago. That was a big atmospheric river, and Mammoth was so confident that they announced the October 29 opening day a week in advance before the storm hit. The storm was a bit warmer than advertised, not enough to open chair 2 parking even though there was 4+ feet of snow above 10,000 feet.

The above scenario is obviously handled with permanent staff. With the huge 2004 snowpack and during another good November in 2015, lift operation did not go past chairs 4 and 10 until Thanksgiving. So I believe some staff is hired to be available at Thankgiving if they can open Canyon Lodge, even though full staffing might not be until mid-December.

 

[ChrisC]

As for early season under Alterra, ChrisC must have forgotten about 4 years ago. That was a big atmospheric river, and Mammoth was so confident that they announced the October 29 opening day a week in advance before the storm hit. The storm was a bit warmer than advertised, not enough to open chair 2 parking even though there was 4+ feet of snow above 10,000 feet.

I always used to follow the early openings—especially in the Northeast. Now I do not care.

Seattle/WA Cascades cannot reliably open before Thanksgiving—even in 1,000-inch snow years. And big snowmaking systems are not helpful, since temperatures rarely reach the optimal zone.

Lake Tahoe (I feel) is even worse. It's generally not worthwhile until Christmas/New Year's. And I have never made it to Boreal's sometimes-October openings.

I used to love early-season skiing, but now I don't. If I get started by MLK Day - mission accomplished.


In the Northeast, I always thought the best skiing was before the first rainstorm. Great years - February.

 

[Tony Crocker]

November is worth skiing at Mammoth about as often as the July holiday, about 30% of seasons.

Seattle/WA Cascades cannot reliably open before Thanksgiving

November is the wettest month in WA but rain incidence is higher than the ensuing months. Nonetheless the odds of extensive non-manmade skiing on Dec. 1 are probably better than anywhere in Colorado except Wolf Creek.

Lake Tahoe (I feel) is even worse.

Same issue with November having higher rain incidence. Tahoe got about half as much as Mammoth in October 2004. Tahoe had mostly rain during Mammoth's good November openings in 2008, 2015 and 2012. Tahoe had crappy seasons after excessive rain in Decembers of 2012 and 2017, while Mammoth's big December snowpack carried it through ensuing dry months.

Palisades opened from that same October 2021 storm but with not as much snow and only lasted that first weekend.

 

[tseeb]

Rumor is that Mammoth will open next Tuesday, Oct. 21. Heavenly and Kirkwood had what OpenSnow estimates as 12"/14" snow respectively over the last two days, but Vail would never open them a month or more early.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Storm total was 16 inches. That may be 2 feet up top, half of what happened 4 years ago and not enough IMHO to open that kind of terrain.

With this base they could blow snow and open a few groomers around Main Lodge. But temps are predicted to go above freezing Friday and stay there for at least a week. If Mammoth was planning to open they would be blowing snow right now.

They aren't, and it's clear from this pic that they need to if they want to open next week.

 

[MarzNC]

But temps are predicted to go above freezing Friday and stay there for at least a week. If Mammoth was planning to open they would be blowing snow right now.

Since I have access to the Free Preview for Wet Bulb at the moment, here's what OpenSnow shows for the next two weeks. Dark blue line is the OpenSnow forecast.

 

[Tony Crocker]

How did you get Snowmaking (Wet Bulb Temp)? On that Forecast Range chart, beyond cloud cover I am offered only Total Snowfall, Snowfall (12 hr), Snow Level and Snow Ratio.

 

[EMSC]

Abasin, Copper and Keystone have all run small amounts of snowmaking a couple nights ago. More along the lines of system tests than anything given the tiny amount of snow made. That said, at least overnight snowmaking should begin in earnest sometime in the next week given forecasts.

There have been multiple brief cold fronts with a couple inches of snow on the mountains over this way this year. At the moment not much left to show for it except a few places on N faces at or above ~12K feet.

Based on that Wet Bulb chart for Mammoth, I don't think California is going to be open any time soon (eg not for October).

 

[MarzNC]

How did you get Snowmaking (Wet Bulb Temp)? On that Forecast Range chart, beyond cloud cover I am offered only Total Snowfall, Snowfall (12 hr), Snow Level and Snow Ratio.

When not skiing, I only use OpenSnow on my laptop. The Help guide shows the process on the app. I'm playing with Wet Bulb now to see if there is any reason to pay extra to have access later. Not too likely since the friends I'm sharing with aren't the type to care about that level of detail.

Start by scrolling down from Snow Summary to find Forecast Range. Then do whatever it takes to get to the farthest "chip" that is labeled "Snowmaking (Wet Bulb Temp)".

Here's what I see on my Mac Air 13-inch screen:

 

[Tony Crocker]

My computer will not go beyond Snow Ratio.

 

[MarzNC]

My computer will not go beyond Snow Ratio.

So you can't swipe on the "chips" to make them move? There are a bunch more options between Snow Ratio and Wind Speed. The screen shots I took show the two ends of the list.

In general, Forecast Range is so interactive, it's taking a while to figure out what changes on the display. Would take a video 20+ minutes long to demonstrate stuff properly.

 

[Tony Crocker]

swipe on the "chips"

"Swipe" doesn't really exist on a desktop. I tried "swiping" with the mouse and it did not move at all. I had been clicking on the rightmost option and it would not go farther than Snow Ratio. But today it works fine.