Mammoth, CA December 15-16, 2025

tseeb · Dec 16, 2025

I skied Mammoth Dec. 15 from 830 to 320 with no breaks after driving from So. Tahoe and filling up on $2.79 gas in Gardnerville before 6 AM. Moon to left of sign.

I’m hoping Tony Crocker will fill in more details as I’m tired from getting on the road very early this AM. SkiTracks counted 24 runs and 28.8K.

I started with Mambo then did Stump Alley on chair 2. Both had some floating rocks that required me to look at snow closer to me that I wanted to. I moved to chair 1 and did a couple of laps on Broadway which I thought had better coverage except for some of the middle. Then I rode gondola to the top and skied Daves where it did not seem necessary to take the 2nd short hike to get highest entrance as that just put you higher above where you had to make a couple of turns on steep bumps where a fall could have sent you on a steep slide over rocks. Looking back at Dave's at 1020. I always skied to looker right of shadow. Tony came down bowl in center on photo on his one Dave's lap.

My first exit I did very short hike to break in fence behind sign and skied some of Solitude even though they added sign saying No Uphill Hiking.

I did another Broadway, then Dave’s to Solitude and found main exit was OK although there were a couple of places including entrance where you had to avoid rocks.

I met up with Tony Crocker and Liz at the top of Cornice which was in a little better shape than two weeks earlier, but still treacherous enough that some boarders were butt-sliding it after falls and once was enough for us. We skied down to Canyon Lodge twice where snowmaking coverage on our two routes was very good.

Fascination was again the only race course run that I skied. I found good smooth snow on both sides. The middle had bumps and some rocks. It seems like there were concentrating snowmaking elsewhere including getting and keeping open routes to Canyon Lodge. We also skied West Bowl, Saddle Bowl and Face on chair 3. Tony and I skied Dropout by traversing from Cornice. I told him you didn’t need to go so high on traverse as it led into a lot of rocks before you got to the good skiing.

Snow was good, but light was already challenging after 2 PM.

We also had skied WipeOut 2 where snow was not as good. Not sure if wet fog or a warmup had affected it but it was not smooth and was firm. Lower down snow smoothed out and was better.

Tony Crocker · Dec 16, 2025

I appreciate the above TR as I am still without my laptop and first priority when I get home tonight will the the mid-December Season No Progress Report.

These are quite unusual conditions for Mammoth. I was here at the same time in 2011-12 to demo and buy boots and the lower mountain snowmaking runs had better coverage and surfaces than they do now.

Mammoth has made the most of its limited snowmaking windows. The two runs to Canyon Lodge Little Bird and Lower Downhill had spring conditions but good coverage. Other runs that would not have been open at all without it were Stump Alley, Mambo and Forest Trail.

The race course runs did not have snowmaking priority, so Fascination was good only on sides and Andy’s had moguls that Liz skied once. All of the lower runs had occasional firm manmade subsurfaces, noticeable mainly to us princesses who rarely see that at Mammoth. The local racers had courses roped off adjacent to Broadway and Stump Alley to benefit from the snowmaking on those runs.

Some natural snow terrain had excellent soft chalk, notably West Bowl, Dave’s and the broad area under the Drop Outs as recommended by Mammoth Snowman. Wipe Out 1 looked to have some of that but it’s steep, narrow and hard to get in. Scotty’s looked rocky at the top and not smooth until its lower half. Wipe Out 2 was the widest run on that side of 23 and some of it was smooth, but I don’t know why it was firmer than the other places.

Tony Crocker · Dec 17, 2025

Today was mostly cloudy, and that also prevented an overnight freeze. Morning skiing needed less effort than Monday, but more thin spots got exposed in the afternoon.

Liz took 3 runs on chair 12, reported favorably. It’s intermediate and all natural snow but low traffic with a slow chair of 800 vertical.

Tseeb and I concentrated on the upper runs with best snow: twice on Dave’s and 3x under the Drop Outs. The latter were especially good despite less than ideal light with December mostly overcast skies. I was getting farther down the hill on those runs than usual before needing a suck wind break. On one of the runs out to Dave's I skied Rockgarden while it still has a skiable path. Past history tells me it will get wind stripped when Dave's builds up a big cornice and turns Rockgarden into a wind tunnel.

One other interesting area was Solitude after the times we skied Dave’s. The left side is roped off for less snowmaking, but the natural snow surface was better and it wasn’t that difficult to avoid the rocks. I skied 25,500 on Monday and 21,100 on Tuesday.

We got to Mammoth just in time, as the next week will suck. High winds are predicted the rest of this week then rain to 10,000 feet over the weekend. The storms starting a week out are still forecast and expected to be big, with the caveat of a rain/snow line that may or may not stay at 8,000 feet. That should boost Mammoth a lot, even if not so good for Tahoe.

tseeb · Dec 17, 2025

Ski Tracks report of my runs, vertical and hard to read details map of where I skied.

I barely had more time skiing than driving home afterwards which took just under 6 hrs. including going about a mile out of my way to fillup on $2.83/gallon (cash) regular at Wal-Mart on S end of Gardnerville, NV. I missed noon re-closure of Sonora Pass by about 4 hrs. Temp when I went over 8500+' Carson Pass, about 5 miles before Kirkwood, dropped from 42 to 41. It was very foggy after Kirkwood for at least ten miles and had started raining 10 miles or more before the pass. I suppose Caltrans and CHP have to be extra cautious to not trap people on road when they close passes for the Winter and don't want to deal with possible problems after dark, but it added 50 miles and 30 minutes to my drive. At least the CHP I passed while doing close to 70 in a 55 mph area of US-395 did not come after me. Temp at home reached 75 at 12:30 PM today.

I started with a chair 2, skiing a lap on Mambo, then two on Stump where I found good smooth groomed snow on right edge and was joined by @Tony Crocker and Liz. Guy I road first lift with said groomers were working Stump when he arrived. We skied different routes to chair 1 twice, then went up chair 3 and skied a different route to base or went up chair 23 and skied Cornice that was in better shape than previous day but still required caution. See the puff?

Liz getting back into the sun with some of the Minarets, Mount Ritter and Banner Peak behind her after skiing mostly shady Cornice before 1030.

@Tony Crocker and I moved to Dave's where he skied Rock Garden once since he wanted to do it before snow disappears there later in season. Both times we went through barely open corner of fence, a couple of steps above where they wanted you to stay (the orange sign)

but it gave us better snow and less rocks to avoid. Tony skied left side of Solitude much farther than me on first lap and a little farther on 2nd.

We skied a couple of laps into Dropouts where snow was good to very good, but light never great even though I was wearing somewhat bright googles. They finished with a lap down Fascination (although Tony tried Andy's) then Mambo. I took the right side of Fascination once, then did the better left side twice before doing a lap on the Face (lift and run). I thought I'd finish with another Dave's but entrance was roped off so I did a quick Cornice then Mambo to the car, not wanting to brave Climax that I have not skied this year. This was my treat on last gondy ride - no time to go to car for a beer.

Bridgeport, CA fuel prices and Topaz Lake, which straddles CA/NV and where my family used to go camping and waterskiing as water was better for it than Tahoe.

tseeb · Dec 20, 2025

I left out photos of @Tony Crocker going to and skiing Dropouts. Snow was good to very good, but light never that good even though I was wearing somewhat bright googles. First photo is Tony C trying to get a higher traverse into Dropouts.