Mammoth, April 15-17, 2026

[Tony Crocker]

It snowed 2 feet last weekend, prompting a big crowd of locals Monday. The top opened 2PM and was tracked out in 45 minutes. They reopened chair 22 (closed since March 29) just Monday morning for the powder.

Since Monday it has gradually warmed, but the wind has been a factor. By our arrival Wednesday incompletely skied powder had stiffened and was best avoided. But there was a lot of skier packed winter snow on the upper mountain as well as on chairs 3 and 5, and even in the broad mellow area by the chair 2 unloading area. It was predicted cloudy, but the day started sunny, with this interesting cloud soon arriving.

View of upper mountain:

There is much more coverage than when I was last here in early February, so I see no issues making the Memorial Day closing.

Lower parts of Stump Alley and Fascination had melt/frozen so I moved higher to winter snow on Cornice and chair 3. The only difficulty was that it clouded over completely from about 10-11AM, so Cornice and particularly West Bowl had flat light.

We took a short break at the Mill. Since it was sunny when we came out, we headed up top via chair 23.

I was enticed by watching those skiers and so ventured into Drop Out 1 while Liz skied Cornice. While Drop Out 1 was winter snow, it was not smooth and I didn’t ski it that well.

The St. Anton runout was excellent, so we then skied the race course run Ralphie’s.

Despite the moderate breeze, there was widespread first day softening midday on chairs 3 and 5 and around Main Lodge. We moved to chair 3 and skied Christmas/China Bowls.

We skied Coyote to 3 excellent laps on chair 5.

Someone in a fun costume is also enjoying chair 5.

Here’s view to Climax while riding chair 5.

I probably should have skied Climax Wednesday but we had prime conditions where we were and two more ski days ahead.

Upper Dry Creek:

We also skied Lower Dry Creek before stopping for a late lunch at the Mill, using the credits from February. FYI Alterra gave Liz the $60 credit in addition to mine even though she was in Africa when I was earning the credits.

After lunch we went back up to and skied off the back via sun softened Santiago. From 14 we hiked up to Scotty’s, where Liz started down first.

St. Anton was still great, so we took a run on Terry’s before heading to chair 3. Our final run was an encore on Upper Dry Creek.

Even though we arrived at 8:30AM, the chair 2 lot was full so we parked at the small chair 10 lot. The walk to the lifts is a bit longer but there was a sketchy ski track at the end of the day close to the lot. Canyon Lodge parking and chair 16 are open through April 19, but the facilities are closed and the end of day conditions aren’t very good over there. There is not enough snow to hold the traditional pond skim event on Canyon’s closing day this Sunday.

I skied 25,600 vertical Wednesday in well above average conditions for mid-April, not quite realizing how widespread the first day softening was. Winter snow was on about half the open runs in the morning but down to about 10% at the end of the day.

 

[Tony Crocker]

The weather models predicted mostly cloudy Wednesday with clearing the next two days. Wind predictions were modest. But we know wind and clouds are challenging for the models. On Wednesday night I read Mammoth Snowman’s report from Tuesday morning. His weather guy said Tuesday and Wednesday would have mostly fair weather but warned of high winds Thursday.

We definitely had the wind Thursday, blasting us all day on chairs 2, 3, 10, 16 and even 23. The gondola stopped for about half an hour in the morning but ran the rest of the day.

We knew it was a different day when Stump Alley was mostly hardpack. I thought we would move up to chair 3 and winter snow like Wednesday, but Saddle Bowl was frozen solid. Face of 3 was steep enough on its upper half to retain winter snow, but became firm when the pitch eased.

So we switched plans and headed for chairs 4 and 16 for hopefully softening spring snow. During most Aprils chairs 9 and 25 are the place to be in this scenario but those areas closed after the March heat wave.

Snow is still blowing near the top of chair 4.

The first run there was still a bit firm so we decided to go lower, first on the not open Little Bird.

We had to slog through some thin snow at the bottom to reach chair 16. But we were pleasantly surprised that the main run down 16 had adequate cover and some corn snow. South Park also had corn to the sides of the park features. Both of those runs were worth an encore. Woolly made an appearance at chair 4.

The Hawaiian shirt was a bit ironic given the wind chill on the lifts.

Riding chair 4 we could see the tracks in the Avalanche Chutes from when chair 22 had been open Monday.

While we had been on 4 and 16, Wall Street and Lost in the Woods had softened nicely. After those we rode chair 2 and skied to Main Lodge via Rusty’s, which is the only run over there tilted into morning sun. This was just after noon so we took a lunch break.

After lunch we ventured up top. Cornice was steep enough to retain winter snow though by then it had been skied quite a bit. Next we skied Scotty’s, which had winter snow only for its upper third. When pitch eased off it was hardpack the rest of the way to St. Anton. St. Anton and the race course runs had finally softened around 2PM. We finished via face of 3 and Coyote about 2:45, having skied 24,800 vertical.

The high winds were due to a dry cold front, and with clearing the Thursday overnight low was 19F. As predicted Friday was sunny and not windy, but it did not warm up as rapidly as forecast. Thus snow remained firm at least as long as on Thursday. The morning snow was ideal for these GS racers.

We had breakfast at the Mill, but Stump was still firm at 9:30. We knew to go over to 16, which had not yet fully softened. We noticed lots of people on Solitude and Upper Solitude was better. We crossed to chair 3, then back to 5 via Coyote, which was also not softened yet. But after another run on Upper Solitude we finally hit the corn window on 16 about 10:30. As on Thursday we skied 2 runs there and also 2 on South Park.

We then went up top to Cornice, which was similar to Thursday. Both days World Cup lower down was hardpack. And Rusty’s which had been soft just past noon Thursday was not yet on Friday. Next we went back to the top and skied to 14, which we heard was soft midday Thursday, but only at the very bottom Friday.

We returned to the frontside via 13 and skied mellow Critters, which we knew would be softer than steeper runs on chair 12. We reached Main Lodge at 1:30, and at last the race course runs were in optimal condition. We skied all three, Ralphie’s, Fascination and Andy’s.

I had to try something ungroomed off the top, but I knew from the Scotty’s run Thursday that the aprons below the steeps would still be solid frozen. Dave’s was the logical choice, and while riding the gondola someone who had skied it an hour earlier reported favorably.

Up there I was reminded of our discussion of lake views from ski areas. From Dave’s there is a distant view of Mono Lake.

The most familiar lake view from Mammoth is Crowley Lake about 15 miles SE.

But today I had a more unusual view of the close by Mammoth Lakes. I had to traverse out of bounds to get a better view.

What’s unusual is that Lake Mary (left) and Lake George (right) are completely thawed at 9,000 feet thanks to the March heat wave.

I traversed back and skied the smoothest line looker’s left in the pic below.

There were only a few crunchy turns at the bottom before I hit the sun softened cat road leading to Solitude, where I cut off and skied a perfect corn Wall Street to finish my day with 27,700 vertical.

It would have been nicer to have the two windy and cooler days before rather than after the mid and much of the upper mountain went to spring conditions. Nonetheless, about 2/3 of Mammoth is still open and grooming is widespread and not cut back to a minimal level as at some ski areas at this time of year (LCC, cough, cough). So we were able to move around and score pleasant surface conditions on well over half our runs Thursday and Friday.