We returned to Mammoth with a fairly normal spring weather forecast, and were joined by Tseeb and Lonnie, who had independently skied Palisades Sunday.
Weather was on the warmer side of normal even for late May, high 58 Monday and 62 Tuesday and with no wind. This chair 2 runs were in full corn mode at 8:30AM Tuesday and not far from it Monday. On Monday we skied 4 lower groomers before taking the gondola up to Cornice.
Cornice was in fine form so we took an encore and then Tseeb and I skied Climax and Dave's and rejoined Liz at chair 3. Tseeb dropping into Face of 3:
The bare spot at right had been cannibalized to maintain a deeper base on the line we were skiing. I have never seen so much evidence of proactive snow relocation to prolong open runs as this spring. SnowBrains had a feature earlier this month on the topic.
We skied Coyote to chair 5.
The lower section of Coyote was on its last day Monday with two narrow entries through a line of dirt.
Chair 5 was open only because the lower half of Solitude was being used by Mammoth's race team. Ungroomed terrain on 5 had deteriorated because the gully runout to the lift had lost most of its snow, leaving the rest of the ungroomed to get suncupped because it wasn't being skied. The upside was that few non-racers bothered skiing 5 so Solitude was in smooth corn mode most of the morning. View of Dave's Run from top of 5:
This was illustrative of much of the upper mountain skiing. Only the line with the whitest snow had seen enough traffic to maintain good conditions and avoid suncupping.
After two Solitude laps we skied down to chair 2, then up 23 to ski Scotty's. Liz on Scotty's with Wipe Outs in background:
Skyline/Scotty's had some of the best skiing at Mammoth on this trip. Skyline was completely burned off May 13-14 a year ago, even though much of Mammoth had more difficult conditions on this trip. There is also a 10 foot base remaining at the sign up top, much more than last year. There are always year to year variations in Mammoth's snowpack based upon wind deposition during storms. But this season had a couple of unusual features:
1) There was excessive avalanche activity during the December storms, notably in the Paranoids and on Climax.
3) The January-March dry spell likely had some impact, perhaps on the dirtier look of the snow which accelerates the suncupping.
Gremlin's and St. Anton were roped off for some of the US Ski Team.
We finally got in there sometime after noon when they were done.
Next Tseeb and I skied Drop Out 1.
The spring snow on the steeps was excellent though with deeper moguls in some places. The runouts below the steeps had heavier snow, which had suncups and rotten areas if you strayed from skier packed lines.
We skied Wipe Out 2, a Scotty's encore and also Andy's on chair 1, which as usual has the best midday snow on the lower mountain.
After 27 years I lost my Avocet Vertech watch twice on the same day! About 10:30AM I dumped my midlayer sweater in the gondola. When I noticed later that the watch as missing it seemed obvious that's how it had happened. I notified attendants at both top and bottom and was told on my last gondola ride that the watch was had been found and was at McCoy mid-station. I put it on my right wrist, remember checking the time at 1:45 and skied my presumed last run down Stump Alley. About 3/4 of the way down I saw several "floater" rocks on the run and stopped to throw then aside. When I arrived at the car, the watch was again missing. I rode 2 again and crisscrossed the run where I had had been removing rocks. I found nothing then or at Lost and Found Tuesday. I skied 26,400 vertical on Monday.
We never saw Lonnie Monday as he got out late, hung around the race courses for awhile and skied the top later than Tseeb and I did. On Tuesday Tseeb got out early as he wanted to get home to San Jose via Sonora Pass by dinner. Liz and I got out at 8:30 again and were soon joined by Lonnie. Overview from chair 3 to chair 23, including West Bowl moguls and some carved wiggle lines under Hangman's.
With the faster softening we headed up top to Cornice about 9AM. From the lower gondola we could see where the halfpipe had been taken down and its snow moved to preserve Broadway though the schedule June 5 closing.
Liz on first Cornice run:
Lonnie and Liz dropping into second run on Cornice:
Lonnie and I then skied Climax.
Lonnie took this pic of me.
As on other top runs, the steeps were good but Lonnie is traversing out of the suncupped runout here.
We skied a lap on Face of 3, then joined Liz off the back. With Coyote now closed we traversed all the way across 5 to Solitude.
No one was skiing the ungroomed suncups below that traverse line.
View of chair 5 from the base, Coyote at right:
Despite those two unappetizing pics, Solitude had butter smooth corn and was worth two more laps.
When we returned to chair 2, Lonnie ran into a couple of acquaintances. John lives near Crowley Lake and we have skied with him late season before. Blake works at Snowbird, skis on blades with an umbrella and visits Mammoth after Snowbird closes. Here they are at the top of Skyline with Liz and Lonnie and view of Minarets.
Tseeb just started skiing Skyline.
Zoom of Blake on lower Scotty's:
That's a very sturdy umbrella so it can be used as an airbrake to reduce speed.
Lonnie on Scotty's:
We then skied 3 laps on 23: Drop Out 3, Wipe Out 1 and Drop Out 1. Lonnie and John are at the bottom of the steeps while I'm taking a breather about halfway down.
As before the lower runout was a workout staying in the skier packed line.
On the two Drop Out runs, as soon as the skier packed snow ended we traversed out to Cornice, then skied Gremlin's racer corn. With the warmer weather, the racers were done with Gremlin's about 11AM.
We then skied Skyline/Scotty's and Andy's. I finished with 21,500 vertical maybe about 1:30. We tailgated with Mountain Monster from SkiTalk and a few other people, including Bernie who has been driving snowcats at Mammoth for 20 years. Bernie and I discussed the history of Mammoth late season closings through the Dave McCoy and Starwood eras to the present.
During the Starwood era, the old Mammoth Forum often discussed the "Broadway rule," which meant that the area would not stay open if Broadway could not be maintained for skiing. Bernie explained that annual gondola maintenance starts right after Memorial Day, and therefore the ski area must close if Broadway lacks snow and the gondola is not available for downloading. By my observation gondola maintenance usually takes about 3 weeks. I believe that during the early Starwood years of high financial leverage, there was some conservatism about running extra late, with the particular evidence being the July 4 closure in 2011 with at least as much snowpack as existed in 2017 when Mammoth was open to August 6. Bernie pointed out that there were extensive capital improvements during summer 2011. I noticed the new chair 5 construction when I was their doing AT on Aug. 31/Sept. 1. Summer 2011 was also when Mammoth installed RFID gates at all lower mountain lifts.
Bernie did not disagree when I recalled the financial stress of 2011-12 when the lenders forced Rusty to close June Mt. in 2012-13, and Rusty's renegotiation of the debt load in Dec. 2012, which prevented similar financial fallout in the even worse 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons. My observation is that Mammoth is at least as aggressive since 2016 in extending the late season as during the Dave McCoy era.
Weather was on the warmer side of normal even for late May, high 58 Monday and 62 Tuesday and with no wind. This chair 2 runs were in full corn mode at 8:30AM Tuesday and not far from it Monday. On Monday we skied 4 lower groomers before taking the gondola up to Cornice.
Cornice was in fine form so we took an encore and then Tseeb and I skied Climax and Dave's and rejoined Liz at chair 3. Tseeb dropping into Face of 3:
The bare spot at right had been cannibalized to maintain a deeper base on the line we were skiing. I have never seen so much evidence of proactive snow relocation to prolong open runs as this spring. SnowBrains had a feature earlier this month on the topic.
We skied Coyote to chair 5.
The lower section of Coyote was on its last day Monday with two narrow entries through a line of dirt.
Chair 5 was open only because the lower half of Solitude was being used by Mammoth's race team. Ungroomed terrain on 5 had deteriorated because the gully runout to the lift had lost most of its snow, leaving the rest of the ungroomed to get suncupped because it wasn't being skied. The upside was that few non-racers bothered skiing 5 so Solitude was in smooth corn mode most of the morning. View of Dave's Run from top of 5:
This was illustrative of much of the upper mountain skiing. Only the line with the whitest snow had seen enough traffic to maintain good conditions and avoid suncupping.
After two Solitude laps we skied down to chair 2, then up 23 to ski Scotty's. Liz on Scotty's with Wipe Outs in background:
Skyline/Scotty's had some of the best skiing at Mammoth on this trip. Skyline was completely burned off May 13-14 a year ago, even though much of Mammoth had more difficult conditions on this trip. There is also a 10 foot base remaining at the sign up top, much more than last year. There are always year to year variations in Mammoth's snowpack based upon wind deposition during storms. But this season had a couple of unusual features:
1) There was excessive avalanche activity during the December storms, notably in the Paranoids and on Climax.
3) The January-March dry spell likely had some impact, perhaps on the dirtier look of the snow which accelerates the suncupping.
Gremlin's and St. Anton were roped off for some of the US Ski Team.
We finally got in there sometime after noon when they were done.
Next Tseeb and I skied Drop Out 1.
The spring snow on the steeps was excellent though with deeper moguls in some places. The runouts below the steeps had heavier snow, which had suncups and rotten areas if you strayed from skier packed lines.
We skied Wipe Out 2, a Scotty's encore and also Andy's on chair 1, which as usual has the best midday snow on the lower mountain.
After 27 years I lost my Avocet Vertech watch twice on the same day! About 10:30AM I dumped my midlayer sweater in the gondola. When I noticed later that the watch as missing it seemed obvious that's how it had happened. I notified attendants at both top and bottom and was told on my last gondola ride that the watch was had been found and was at McCoy mid-station. I put it on my right wrist, remember checking the time at 1:45 and skied my presumed last run down Stump Alley. About 3/4 of the way down I saw several "floater" rocks on the run and stopped to throw then aside. When I arrived at the car, the watch was again missing. I rode 2 again and crisscrossed the run where I had had been removing rocks. I found nothing then or at Lost and Found Tuesday. I skied 26,400 vertical on Monday.
We never saw Lonnie Monday as he got out late, hung around the race courses for awhile and skied the top later than Tseeb and I did. On Tuesday Tseeb got out early as he wanted to get home to San Jose via Sonora Pass by dinner. Liz and I got out at 8:30 again and were soon joined by Lonnie. Overview from chair 3 to chair 23, including West Bowl moguls and some carved wiggle lines under Hangman's.
With the faster softening we headed up top to Cornice about 9AM. From the lower gondola we could see where the halfpipe had been taken down and its snow moved to preserve Broadway though the schedule June 5 closing.
Liz on first Cornice run:
Lonnie and Liz dropping into second run on Cornice:
Lonnie and I then skied Climax.
Lonnie took this pic of me.
As on other top runs, the steeps were good but Lonnie is traversing out of the suncupped runout here.
We skied a lap on Face of 3, then joined Liz off the back. With Coyote now closed we traversed all the way across 5 to Solitude.
No one was skiing the ungroomed suncups below that traverse line.
View of chair 5 from the base, Coyote at right:
Despite those two unappetizing pics, Solitude had butter smooth corn and was worth two more laps.
When we returned to chair 2, Lonnie ran into a couple of acquaintances. John lives near Crowley Lake and we have skied with him late season before. Blake works at Snowbird, skis on blades with an umbrella and visits Mammoth after Snowbird closes. Here they are at the top of Skyline with Liz and Lonnie and view of Minarets.
Tseeb just started skiing Skyline.
Zoom of Blake on lower Scotty's:
That's a very sturdy umbrella so it can be used as an airbrake to reduce speed.
Lonnie on Scotty's:
We then skied 3 laps on 23: Drop Out 3, Wipe Out 1 and Drop Out 1. Lonnie and John are at the bottom of the steeps while I'm taking a breather about halfway down.
As before the lower runout was a workout staying in the skier packed line.
On the two Drop Out runs, as soon as the skier packed snow ended we traversed out to Cornice, then skied Gremlin's racer corn. With the warmer weather, the racers were done with Gremlin's about 11AM.
We then skied Skyline/Scotty's and Andy's. I finished with 21,500 vertical maybe about 1:30. We tailgated with Mountain Monster from SkiTalk and a few other people, including Bernie who has been driving snowcats at Mammoth for 20 years. Bernie and I discussed the history of Mammoth late season closings through the Dave McCoy and Starwood eras to the present.
During the Starwood era, the old Mammoth Forum often discussed the "Broadway rule," which meant that the area would not stay open if Broadway could not be maintained for skiing. Bernie explained that annual gondola maintenance starts right after Memorial Day, and therefore the ski area must close if Broadway lacks snow and the gondola is not available for downloading. By my observation gondola maintenance usually takes about 3 weeks. I believe that during the early Starwood years of high financial leverage, there was some conservatism about running extra late, with the particular evidence being the July 4 closure in 2011 with at least as much snowpack as existed in 2017 when Mammoth was open to August 6. Bernie pointed out that there were extensive capital improvements during summer 2011. I noticed the new chair 5 construction when I was their doing AT on Aug. 31/Sept. 1. Summer 2011 was also when Mammoth installed RFID gates at all lower mountain lifts.
Bernie did not disagree when I recalled the financial stress of 2011-12 when the lenders forced Rusty to close June Mt. in 2012-13, and Rusty's renegotiation of the debt load in Dec. 2012, which prevented similar financial fallout in the even worse 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons. My observation is that Mammoth is at least as aggressive since 2016 in extending the late season as during the Dave McCoy era.
Last edited:
