Friday and Saturday were warmer (upper 40’s F) with no wind and a lighter overnight freeze, so softening was about an hour earlier than Thursday. This is not as warm as it can be mid-spring and it’s important to have some overnight freeze for an optimal corn window. The unloading area of chair 2 was soft at 8:30 opening bell Friday while it was firm until about 9:15 Thursday.
So we adjusted our schedule accordingly from Thursday. We hit Coyote not much after 9AM. Ralphie’s and Fascination were not roped off so we hit those by 10:30. I went into Ski Patrol to find out about the Storm Summaries, and when I came out mdf/Mike joined us for a few runs. We rode 1 and 23 and skied Scotty’s, then took the gondola to the top. Mdf/Mike in Climax under the gondola:
We skied Upper Dry Creek about 11:30 and found the chair 5 terrain at its optimum. Mike moved on after one more run on Sanctuary, but Liz and I stayed for 4 more runs on Face of 5, Sanctuary and Triangle. This is the view from top of Triangle:
Usually there is one open line about 20 feet wide and a few others through stunted trees depending upon snowpack.
At 12:30 Liz called it a day with one more coming with added lifts and terrain. I crossed over to chair 23 and skied Drop Out 2 to the Gremlin’s/St. Anton race runs and finished with a gondola to Dave’s Run and Triangle. Dave’s was good on the upper steeps, but halfway down I moved over to more skier packed lower Rockgarden. I skied 23,100 vertical Friday.
For the weekend Mammoth added chairs 17, 4 and 19 on the east side and 12, 13 and 14 on the west side. We parked at Canyon and walked up to chair 17, passing the giant excavation for the new 6-pack replacing chair 16.
We rode chairs 17, 4 and 5 to get to east facing chair 9 before 9AM.
Gold Hill was already at its corn peak then. Riding chair 9 we get the view left of Ricochet and Dragon’s Back.
Ricochet just left of the lift had probably been groomed a week ago and had smooth corn all the way down.
We next cut over to Solitude to reach Quicksilver. Looking back up toward 9 was this unusual isolated park construction.
Someone said this was used for filming a simultaneous ski, snowboard and bike jump.
After one more Gold Hill/Slot cruise we traversed out Dragon’s Back, skied a short upper fall line and followed a diagonal path into lower Wazoo. Liz approaching me there:
We had spotted from the chair the excellent corn that Liz is enjoying here.
Liz headed to McCoy for a short break while I took one more traverse out Dragon’s Back. View of the last fall line I skied before the rocks between Dragon's Back and upper Wazoo:
We met at McCoy about 10:45 and were reminded that it was Saturday. The gondola had a 5-10 minute line at mid and 10-15 minutes at the bottom. We skied gondola runs on Cornice and Rockgarden, shown here.
The third time up it almost noon so time to check out the backside. There was a narrow opening in the fence to get in from the top, and here is Liz skiing up there with Minarets in the background.
Looking down towards chair 14:
You can see a short ridge of snow they have built up to mark the boundary there. The other side is called Fresno Bowl because that where you will end up if you follow the San Joaquin River drainage.
We rode chair 14 twice, skiing Arriba in optimal corn.
While we did not have lift lines on 14, the Melt House facility had a 20 minute line for food. We had a sandwich there as it was 1PM and we had covered the corn optimally on the chairs that had opened for the weekend.
After lunch we needed 3 chairs to get back to Canyon Lodge parking. We rode 13 and skied Secret Spot, then past chair 12 to Main Lodge. We expected to take chair 1 but it was closed for maintenance. We opted for one last gondola to the top. I skied Climax and Liz Cornice and we managed to meet at chair 5.
We skied Face of 5 and cut across Solitude to a trail between the tops of chair 4 and 16. There was one way down Avalanche and Roller Coaster before you could veer right and ski down chair 17. The path next to chair 4 was not open in the morning to keep people away from the Red Bull park exhibition.
I told Liz to pose there to show the scale of the jump.
Here’s another feature lower down with gondola and Climax in far background.
We skied 22,700 vertical Saturday. Liz was very enthusiastic about the quality of these final four ski days before her knee replacement.
So we adjusted our schedule accordingly from Thursday. We hit Coyote not much after 9AM. Ralphie’s and Fascination were not roped off so we hit those by 10:30. I went into Ski Patrol to find out about the Storm Summaries, and when I came out mdf/Mike joined us for a few runs. We rode 1 and 23 and skied Scotty’s, then took the gondola to the top. Mdf/Mike in Climax under the gondola:
We skied Upper Dry Creek about 11:30 and found the chair 5 terrain at its optimum. Mike moved on after one more run on Sanctuary, but Liz and I stayed for 4 more runs on Face of 5, Sanctuary and Triangle. This is the view from top of Triangle:
Usually there is one open line about 20 feet wide and a few others through stunted trees depending upon snowpack.
At 12:30 Liz called it a day with one more coming with added lifts and terrain. I crossed over to chair 23 and skied Drop Out 2 to the Gremlin’s/St. Anton race runs and finished with a gondola to Dave’s Run and Triangle. Dave’s was good on the upper steeps, but halfway down I moved over to more skier packed lower Rockgarden. I skied 23,100 vertical Friday.
For the weekend Mammoth added chairs 17, 4 and 19 on the east side and 12, 13 and 14 on the west side. We parked at Canyon and walked up to chair 17, passing the giant excavation for the new 6-pack replacing chair 16.
We rode chairs 17, 4 and 5 to get to east facing chair 9 before 9AM.
Gold Hill was already at its corn peak then. Riding chair 9 we get the view left of Ricochet and Dragon’s Back.
Ricochet just left of the lift had probably been groomed a week ago and had smooth corn all the way down.
We next cut over to Solitude to reach Quicksilver. Looking back up toward 9 was this unusual isolated park construction.
Someone said this was used for filming a simultaneous ski, snowboard and bike jump.
After one more Gold Hill/Slot cruise we traversed out Dragon’s Back, skied a short upper fall line and followed a diagonal path into lower Wazoo. Liz approaching me there:
We had spotted from the chair the excellent corn that Liz is enjoying here.
Liz headed to McCoy for a short break while I took one more traverse out Dragon’s Back. View of the last fall line I skied before the rocks between Dragon's Back and upper Wazoo:
We met at McCoy about 10:45 and were reminded that it was Saturday. The gondola had a 5-10 minute line at mid and 10-15 minutes at the bottom. We skied gondola runs on Cornice and Rockgarden, shown here.
The third time up it almost noon so time to check out the backside. There was a narrow opening in the fence to get in from the top, and here is Liz skiing up there with Minarets in the background.
Looking down towards chair 14:
You can see a short ridge of snow they have built up to mark the boundary there. The other side is called Fresno Bowl because that where you will end up if you follow the San Joaquin River drainage.
We rode chair 14 twice, skiing Arriba in optimal corn.
While we did not have lift lines on 14, the Melt House facility had a 20 minute line for food. We had a sandwich there as it was 1PM and we had covered the corn optimally on the chairs that had opened for the weekend.
After lunch we needed 3 chairs to get back to Canyon Lodge parking. We rode 13 and skied Secret Spot, then past chair 12 to Main Lodge. We expected to take chair 1 but it was closed for maintenance. We opted for one last gondola to the top. I skied Climax and Liz Cornice and we managed to meet at chair 5.
We skied Face of 5 and cut across Solitude to a trail between the tops of chair 4 and 16. There was one way down Avalanche and Roller Coaster before you could veer right and ski down chair 17. The path next to chair 4 was not open in the morning to keep people away from the Red Bull park exhibition.
I told Liz to pose there to show the scale of the jump.
Here’s another feature lower down with gondola and Climax in far background.
We skied 22,700 vertical Saturday. Liz was very enthusiastic about the quality of these final four ski days before her knee replacement.
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