Mammoth Mountain, CA May 26-28, 2025

[tseeb]

I left So. Tahoe before 430 AM, filled up on not so cheap anymore NV gas ($3.83 - Costco in CA is $4.39) in Minden and caught almost sunrise over Topaz Lake.

View of the (Mono) Inn Fire that closed 395 from Thursday evening to Saturday at 8 PM and would have made for a 2 hr detour into NV. At least one house and one vehicle burned. This is near same area where avalanche closed the road for weeks two years ago.

Sign on 395 before Tioga Pass at 640 AM says open, but electronic sign going up 120 still said closed. Was supposed to open at 8 AM on Memorial Day.

I was going to park along road opposite Mill base but saw an open (and wide) open parking place on closer side of road and after waiting for a few vehicles to pass took it. Chair 2 was closed all day and I had a little walk and one of my biggest lines of the day loading chair 10. I skied some of busy and firm Solitude,

then skied to chair 4 thinking lower and E-facing might be better. But run that was groomed wide had some brown and a couple narrow spots and many small rocks (floaters) on the snow. Then lifties announced it would be 5-10 minutes before it opened which it did. I went up chair 5 and skied Coyote 3x. The top and middle were firm and ungroomed and it took a couple of runs to find a decent route. The bottom was excellent softening snow. It was cloudy and windy, not that cold, but weather kept snow on firm side longer than usual for late May.

I was not enjoying my 94-width somewhat soft DPS so I went to car and got out slightly shorter 88-width Heads that have a 15.7m radius and I had not skied since last May at Mammoth. They worked better for me most of the day. I met up with @Tony Crocker and Liz. We used chairs 10 and 5 to ski Stump Alley which stayed good all day as traffic was low due to chair 2 staying closed. We wanted to take advantage of gondola's last day before maintenance closure and rode it a few times, first skiing Cornice to see how snow off the top was, then skiing Dave's where snow was very good, but getting brown. Next time at the top of the gondola we met up with Sheldon from Ottawa who had attended training in San Jose the previous week and skied Palisades one day, then Mammoth two days, a day ahead of me.

We skied Climax with Tony Crocker and Sheldon entering where there were big soft steep bumps while I went down ridge a little for smoother entrance before crossing some bumps. Where run widened out, the bumps also flattened. We went to the Face of 5, crossing and passing a lot of big suncups to get to smooth snow. Sheldon had to quit early to catch late flight from SFO and skied one Cornice into late-opening racecourse on St. Anton that while smooth was not as fast as when it opens earlier. Sheldon and I rode up chair 1 so he could return to his car at the Mill while Tony and I skied Fascination aka Tony's where snow was a little past its prime. I found surprisingly smooth and fast turns at bottom on right side. Tony and I rode up gondola and skied Road Runner which had one very thin spot to Scotty's. @Tony Crocker on Scotty's.

I quit a little after 1:15 with 27.6K. Tony's friend Garry and his wife Patty hosted us for an excellent BBQ'd salmon and ocean trout dinner in his RV at McGee Creek that was accompanied by a couple great Pinot Noirs brought by Tony Crocker. My only contribution was driving there and am errand and to hot tub and some chips and salsa earlier in afternoon.

 

[ShiftyRider]

It'll soften up nicely in one more run...

Liz, tseeb, ShiftyRider, Big Tim, Tony

 

[snowave]

Is the browning snow entirely from thinning coverage, or is that some dust? I know in the Southern CO mountains we would get dust in early spring from wind storms, mainly from AZ. It would create some dirty snow, but also speed up melting some. I would think it might be tougher to get dust in the eastern Sierra, as dust would mainly come from the Owens Valley or the Central Valley (Neither of which is in an optimal location for Dust in Mammoth, I wouldn't think).

 

[Tony Crocker]

Is the browning snow entirely from thinning coverage, or is that some dust?

Some of it has to be dust. Here's Tseeb skiing Climax which still has a deep snowpack.

This is a profile view of Dave's Run.

That's not very aesthetic, but the skier packed line (which is more white) skied very well around 11AM, as did that run on Climax.

The areas that aren't skied start developing suncups at this time of year. And those same areas look dirtier even if the snowpack isn't thin.

As Tseeb noted, chair 2 has been down since Monday. We heard from an employee today that "parts are in the mail." Here's Liz as the only skier on Stump Alley about 10AM Monday.

Here the snowpack is thinning, so they scraped away some snow looker's right of the lift to build up the left side.

Overview of chair 5 area, riding Gold Rush about 8:45 Monday:

Sheldon, Tseeb, Liz on Cornice:

Note dirty snow just by the fences where people aren't skiing.

On the run from top of the gondola down to Cornice entry is a memorial to the 3 patrollers who died in the fumarole in April 2006.

This is completely buried during the winter, and in above average snow years still buried after Memorial Day, when the gondola is down for 2-3 weeks for annual maintenance.

You can see the overcast in some of the Monday pictures. This prevented an overnight freeze and probably made the softening process on the salted runs more gradual and inconsistent than on sunny days. Despite Mammoth's excellent slope maintenance, the less than optimal weather meant this was a spring day like some people have mentioned where you had to work a little harder to make your turns.

Fortunately the clouds cleared out overnight, so Tuesday resumed corn excellence.

 

[tseeb]

It'll soften up nicely in one more run...

View attachment 45968
Liz, tseeb, ShiftyRider, Big Tim, Tony

I think I was a chair ahead of Big Tim on 23 when rushing to get two more laps before 1 PM closure after a longish wait for parking shuttle to get me back to chair 1 after skiing Stump with @Tony Crocker. I had enough time to re-apply wax to my skis and to go to car to get re-apply sunscreen.

I was wearing Hawaiian shirt as my Kirkwood friend Greg does his last couple days of the season. I was cold in the wind at the top most of the morning. Great seeing @ShiftyRider who wanted a picture of our now 13 year-old German Shepherd who got two walks when I got home Tues eve; one by me then one by our son after dark as he and his girlfriend who came by were trying to their 10K steps. I told them about liftie who was walking opposite to conveyor belt loading chair 1 who I asked if she was trying to get 40K steps. She said no, only 10K. This is Cinco de Mayo in groundcover under 2nd story back deck.

With Lucia when we stopped for a short hike (~1 mile each way) to Bay Area viewpoint at Vargas Plateau off I-680 on return from Walnut Creek last Friday. Lucia is concerned about Leche's walking, but she loves do it even if she's stiff the next day.

 

[EMSC]

memorial to the 3 patrollers who died in the fumarole in April 2006.

Crazy tragedy.

I wonder how they will honor the female patroller that died doing avi work off chair 22 this season.

 

[ChrisC]

Is the browning snow entirely from thinning coverage, or is that some dust? I know in the Southern CO mountains we would get dust in early spring from wind storms, mainly from AZ. It would create some dirty snow, but also speed up melting some.

This is a relatively recent phenomenon, as observed by me. The Southwest appears to be drying out, allowing dust to be swept up into storms during years with low rainfall and moisture. Typically, these initial dust storms are followed by snowfall, but it does speed up the melt.

Did you see this at Purgatory/Wolf Creek? I would assume it would impact the periphery of the San Juans more (e.g., Durango, Telluride, etc.).

 

[tseeb]

Tuesday May 27 was a much nicer day than cloudy Memorial Day, even though chair 2 remained closed, gondola started closure for annual maintenance and since long weekend was over, Mammoth only ran chairs 1, 3, 11 and 23. But number of people skiing had dropped by 80-90%. We parked at the Mill and rode parking shuttle to chair 1 which we rode and skied 4x before moving up to chair 23. I was a bus behind Tony and Liz but think I caught up to them on the third lap. I skied Broadway 3x, finding very good groom that was a little too firm in places along edge, then did also good Rusty's once. Next time up we moved to chair 23 that we rode many times skiing Cornice which held up much longer due to lower crowds, colder night and moderate wind out of N/NE.

Tony and I tried Drop Out 3 from chair 23 where I thought I'd uncovered a rock getting too close to left edge, but found no damage when I looked later. We also took some laps into chair 1 race course runs. Fascination/Tony's was so good on the steep face that you could almost forget about the narrow bumpy bottom where snow had been pushed from edges and snow farmers must have run out of time to smooth it out. My first ride on 23 was with a young lady who had worked ski racing from Mammoth and was done for the year. She said that fencing had been removed along edges of Fascination so snowcats could push snow from edges onto run. She thought racing and Mammoth being open would continue through June 17 (a Tuesday?) and that they would not have enough snow to continue through the next weekend.

Tony, Liz and I skied Road Runner off the back to get to Scotty's. Coverage in narrow part of S-facing road was no worse than previous. Tony had spotted smooth line on Monument that we skied. He found more E-facing entrance a little soft so I entered above a lone rock that was a no-fall. Snow was very good for a long way as what we skied wrapped around to more N-facing. Photos of Tony skiing Monument just before 11 AM.

One more on lower on Monument with some of Minarets, Mt Ritter and Banner Peak in background

Photos taken about 30 min later than ones on Monument.

One of the highlight runs was dropping into a little of Wipe Out 2 and 3, then traversing over The Hump and skiing a long, smooth firm enough line I'd spotted from chair. The exit on St Anton got slower more than an hour earlier that previous cloudy day. Tony quit around noon while I had somewhat long wait for shuttle from Mill/base of not running Mon and Tues chair 2 to Main Lodge/chair 1. Driver blamed it on being stuck behind sweepers coming up the hill. I did another Fascination lap, then rode chairs 1 and 23 and after dropping next to big rock on edge of Wipe Out 2, I repeated the Hump run we'd done earlier, this time cutting back to chair 23 base. For my last run, I came down skiers right edge of Drop Out 1, then cut across Race Course so I could water a tree on route that got me into some of West Bowl where skiers right was much better than left side. I may have been able to get an after 1 PM load onto chair 3, but it was not that great an hour earlier, so I skied still smooth and great Stump to within 50' on my car about 1:05 with 25.8K according to my watch. Will add another post about my trip home when I have more time.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Weather cleared overnight Monday and despite reported lows around 40F there was a mild overnight freeze, perhaps aided by a breeze on the upper mountain. There's some duplication from Tseeb's post above, but I write these reports while Liz is driving between Bishop and Mojave, and they are ready to go when we get home after dinner.

The chair 2 mechanical failure drastically reduced the footprint of open terrain Tuesday. If you skied chair 2 or 5 runs you had to take a bus to Main Lodge to resume skiing. We parked at 2 anyway, as we could ski back at the end of the day.

We were on the hill about 8:20 and took our first 4 laps on Rusty’s (already corn) and skier’s left Broadway (getting there). The action figures have returned to Gravy Chute with Memorial Day flags.

Despite upper elevation, Cornice has a NE tilt and can soften early at this time of year. We hit it at 9AM and it was in perfect smooth corn mode. There were no race courses on Tuesday, so the wide path of Cornice and departed holiday crowds preserved the corn. We took 7 Cornice runs by 10:20, Liz and Tseeb here.

The first 3 were quick laps on chair 23. Two wiggle tracks have been carved out over the past couple of weeks.

The next 4 runs were top to bottom, 3 of them through the race course runs Andy’s and Fascination.

The bottom of Fascination was getting thin so they have built up a narrow strip to extend its life.

Starting about 11AM, Tseeb and I skied some of the upper steeps. The entry to upper Monument has been severed, so we skied the NE facing upper pitch between Monument and Scotty’s, very soft but steep enough for gravity to overcome the heavy snow. We then traversed left to more direct north facing.

This skied quite smoothly, especially if you stayed in the skier packed line. When the slope flattened, the skier pack got narrower and the suncups bigger, so we traversed out to the bottom of Scotty’s.

Next top run was Drop Out 3, similarly NE facing on the steepest upper section.

The middle and lower parts have been skied more than Monument, so wide open and not as necessary to stay in a specific fall line.

The best ungroomed snow we skied was from the Hump down to lower Scotty’s about 11:30. The Wipe Out side of chair 23 faces more NW and stays supportable well past noon even on very warm days. My legs were getting worked, so I called it a day at noon after a final run down Face of 3 to Stump Alley.

Stump Alley was an object lesson of the preservation of corn by low skier traffic. Stump is normally one of Mammoth’s busiest runs, would have turned to corn by 8:30 and been well churned into bumps and clumps by 10AM. With chair 2 closed, we skied to our cars at noon and Stump was ballroom smooth grade A corn.

I skied 21,600 Tuesday. We hiked around Convict Lake in the afternoon and decided to spend another night. That gave us a hot tub recovery after skiing plus hiking, and the conditions of Tuesday were well worth an encore.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Wednesday May 28 was slightly warmer than Tuesday, but seemed more than that because the upslope breeze on Tuesday subsided Wednesday.

The early runs around 8:30 on Wednesday were no softer than Tuesday, and in a few places trickier due to less smooth grooming. The race course from lower Cornice through Gremlin’s and St. Anton was roped off, but oddly no one was using it until after 10AM.

Garry Klassen, who is staying in his RV at McGee Creek all week, had skied Monday after 10:30AM and was unimpressed. He did not ski Tuesday but after our positive review joined us Wednesday.

Our first three runs were Rusty’s, Mambo and Broadway. As on Tuesday, we rode 23 to ski Cornice starting 9AM. Conditions were similarly excellent. Here are Liz and Garry enjoying the second of our 4 consecutive runs on Cornice.

On the 4th run we continued down to Andy’s. When we parked at chair 2, it was moving but employees said for testing. But at 10AM we saw people on it while riding chair 1. Liz and Garry wanted to ski Stump while it was fresh. But I wanted to ski the upper ungroomed earlier than I had on Tuesday.

I first skied Roadrunner around to the top of Monument..

Lower Skyline has burned off at right. However, you can get down far enough to get into the Wipe Outs and the Hump.

View down steep between Scotty’s and Monument:

I was an hour earlier than Tuesday and the snow was more supportable and took much less effort to ski. When I got down to the flatter area with more suncups, I stayed with the narrower skier pack because St. Anton was roped off for racing. This led to Bristlecone, view up from there to the Paranoids.

The fall line was leading toward closed chair 12 or a very flat and sticky slog to Main Lodge. So I needed to traverse through the trees skier’s right to get back to St. Anton. This included a step through an exposed ridge with a few feet of scree, with snow coverage still fortunately present on the other side.

In addition to action figures we noticed this turtle affixed to a rock under chair 23.

It blends into the scenery and is very hard to spot, with only obvious view being the pic taken from directly above it..

I next skied Drop Out 1 while Liz and Garry skied Scotty’s.. From the entry here’s the view up to the gondola closed for annual maintenance.

The monument to the three patrollers who died at the fumarole in 2006 is the dark spot center left.

Drop Out 1 had deep moguls at the top, but skied great once past them, again because I was there earlier than on Tuesday. View back up:

I crossed the race course, skied past chair 23 to Fascination and regrouped with Liz and Garry. Needing a mellower run, we skied from the back of 3 through Saddle Bowl, World Cup and Fascination.

Back up top I skied to the Hump, view down there.

With better timing that Tuesday, I ventured up top one more time. While riding 23 I saw that the race course ropes had just dropped. So it was too tempting to make that my finale. Liz had skied it just before me and went back for an encore. Thus when I got to the car just past noon with 20,300 vertical, she was not there yet. I think she skied about 2K vertical more than me Wednesday.

We are done for the season. It will be interesting to see if Mammoth can really make it to June 17. Chairs 3 and 23 could last that long and Broadway maybe to when the gondola reopens. But the assumed reason to stay open is for the race camps. The lower race runs are already melting at the bottom and not being used for racing, and while World Cup skied great the past two days, part of it is brown so it may be too thin for racing. So that leaves only lower Cornice/Gremlin’s/St. Anton. When it was roped off today but unused past 10AM, I wondered if that might be to preserve the snow.

 

[tseeb]

Tioga Pass re-opened on Memorial after Winter closure which cuts my route home to 235 miles, compared to ~330 if I go all the way to Minden to fill-up on cheaper NV gas, then go past Kirkwood as I did earlier this May.

Apple Maps still does not appear to know it is opened. I stopped at Whoa Nellie Deli/aka Mobil Mart for lunch. The last time I stopped here line to order food was long and I could not connect to Internet to watch court case hearing I wanted to see. This time my fish tacos took only a couple of minutes and were excellent, especially the mango salsa.

Lunch with a view of Mono Lake. Have better photo of tacos if anyone is interested, Fish not nearly as good as BBQ on previous night.

I've been closest to guessing opening of Tioga Pass in contest two years in a row. Last year I missed it by a day and this year by two days. If you guess day it opens, you win $75 towards tank of gas. I was surprised to see it open on Memorial Day, but road repairs were required after rockslides well before Pass. First photo is grader Caltrans used to clear road.

Next photo show how road is exposed to rockslides in this area. Also note road crossing diagonally to middle left.

New pavement in both lanes where cones are on right. Note sure if they needed to wait for this to harden before opening or if Park Service took until Memorial Day so they could get overtime on opening day.

Tioga Pass Yosemite Park Gate, elev. 9945', $35. Free for me with Senior National Parks Pass.

I parked by Tenaya Lake and took about a 20-minute walk. This is some of the granite viewed to South across Lake.

Lady who got into lake was in group speaking foreign language, maybe from Eastern Europe.

Looking West over Tenaya Lake. Road to Olmstead Point with is near low point at far end of lake.

Looking N over end of lake. Highway and where I'd parked is along edge of lake

View from Olmstead Point. Clouds Rest, the highest point visible from Yosemite Valley is left of center. I hiked there once in Spring after a few inches of snow had fallen - our hike started with removing shoes and socks to wade across Tenaya outlet. Half Dome to right of center.

Information about avalanche zone that is to E of Olmstead Point.

With Tioga open and not getting stuck behind slow vehicles until a little before and for a while after Big Oak Flat entrance (where I exited park), my drive home was not much over 5 hrs. Besides stopping at Whoa Nellie, Tenaya Lake and Olmstead Pt, my only other stop was at fruit stand before getting on freeway in Manteca. I bought a bag with more than 2 lbs. of Bing cherries for $7. They were so sweet that they made apricots I also bought seem almost bitter.