With our schedule it took a couple of weeks after the 4-foot storm of Nov. 7-8 before we could get to Mammoth. My foot was not yet comfortable in a ski boot the week of the storm, and last week we had several music events, capped by the Elton John concert at Dodger Stadium.
This early storm was much different from last year’s. Often the early storms have a high rain/snow line which is the reason Mammoth does better than Tahoe. This storm was cold but the center of the track was well south of Tahoe and favored Mammoth. The past two weeks have remained cold, allowing Mammoth to make snow across all of its lower groomed runs from Main Lodge to Canyon Lodge. Canyon’s parking has been open the past two weekends, and now its facilities are fully open for Thanksgiving, probably for the first time since 2004.
Mammoth has new fan guns to make snow, these on Broadway.
This was our second run Wednesday after Stump Alley.
Snow at the top of the mountain is not quite as deep as last November.
The metal band by Liz’ lower leg is at the 4-foot mark. Last year’s depth was exactly 4 feet on Oct. 29 and about 5 feet on Nov. 10.
Here Liz is at the top of Climax, which I did not ski Wednesday but did Thursday.
Mono Lake in the background has a thin layer of surface fog.
Wednesday it warmed to the upper 30’s, but the open terrain remains 90+% packed powder. It was sunny with a mild upslope wind that made the entries to groomed Cornice and Scotty’s firm for a few turns. Lonnie was here last Wednesday-Friday with stronger winds but they were from the west and deposited more loose snow.
While snow on the upper steeps is good, many of the entries on top are rocky.
Here’s my view riding chair 23 after we skied Cornice and Liz continued lower down. .
Drop Out 1 looked good but there were lots of rocks at the top. I dropped in by Drop Out 3 and traversed back to Drop Out 1 below the rocks. Snow was smooth chalk but little loose snow, so DFU with early season confined fall lines.
Next time up 23 I skied Skyline to Scotty’s. I could see only one very marginal entry to the steeps on the Wipe Out side of chair 23. I cruised St. Anton to the gondola base. View up from there:
The longest line on Wednesday was for the beginner chair 11 at lower right. Broadway is at left and the race course runs are at center, and they were in great shape on this trip.
From the top gondola I skied Dave’s Run.
Dave’s has wide open smooth chalk with no rocks dropping in, but the slog over there took some work with wind and more uphill at the end than usual.
Though I had only skied about 10K vertical, I needed to back off and ski a few groomers on chairs 4 and 16. Liz met me at Canyon and we headed for chair 5.
I think those moguls built up last weekend, as Lonnie said it was fairly smooth a week ago. Dry Creek usually gets snow deposition, but Lonnie said it was rocky so we avoided that. We first skied those bumps near the lift, then Face of 5 which was much smoother.
We then headed toward chair 3 but I was lured into China Bowl, which though confined had soft snow and exited into Coyote, bumpy in the middle but groomed on the lower pitch.
We crossed via chair 2 to the race courses. Liz on Andy’s:
We took an encore on Fascination. We finished by skiing ungroomed chalk down the chair 3 liftline, then Mambo to the car.
I skied 23,300 vertical from about 9:15 – 2:00. That was good enough for first day of the season, particularly since we would be skiing with Adam the next day.
Since the chair 2 parking lot was full at 9AM Wednesday, we got there at 8:30 on Thanksgiving Day. After one run on Stump Adam joined us. We skied Face of 3 to Broadway, and noticed riding chair 1 that the racers get Thanksgiving Day off. So we skied Fascination and Andy’s before taking the gondola to the top.
Thursday was a bit warmer overall but the upslope wind on top was much stronger. The lower 2/3 of Cornice had more loose snow than on Wednesday. Scotty’s was good too, though I fell once, started to slide but got my skis below me before I got very far. On the next gondola Liz repeated Cornice while Adam and I skied Climax.
The upper part of Climax had some irregular styrofoam type snow, but it smoothed out on these slots between the rocks. We skied to McCoy and took another gondola to Dave’s, then Solitude and Face of 5, after which Liz rejoined us. Here we are at the top of 5.
We had noticed some people skiing east from Solitude’s saddle toward chair 9. 9 was closed but Eagle had just opened for the holiday so we skied Quicksilver, which was a touch of April in November. It’s a wide open groomer, SE facing with almost no traffic at 11:45AM. The sun is not strong enough for corn, but it was very forgiving soft packed powder.
We crossed the mountain on 15, 16 and 2 to 23. Liz skied another Cornice while I skied Drop Out 3 and Adam followed my line from yesterday to Drop Out 1. Next Adam and I repeated that traverse entry but continued it into Wipe Out 1 to avoid the excessive rocks entering from the Wipe Out side. The aprons below the chair 23 runs are mostly smooth windbuff now.
We met Liz at chair 1, rode up to 3 and finished with China Bowl/Coyote. I skied 21,600 vertical from 8:45 – 1:30. We got on the road and with some research Liz found the Still Life Café in Independence, which served us a Thanksgiving dinner at 4PM.
Overall I’m pleased that after 11 weeks the bunion surgery is a non-issue inside a ski boot, though it hurts a bit taking the boot off. Exercise has been interrupted during this time. I was able to swim for 2+ weeks in October but I did not resume hiking or yoga until Nov. 6.
On Thursday we had a few 5 minute lines on chairs 1, 2 and the gondola, but it’s likely to be very busy the next few days as this has been the most extensive mid-November skiing at Mammoth since 2004. Before that, you have to go back to 1981 and 1982. I was there Thanksgiving Saturday/Sunday in 1981, and supposedly one of the days that weekend set a record at the time of 22,000 people on the hill. FYI Base Ikon is not blacked out for Thanksgiving.
As noted, last season had the Oct. 29 opening, but with sustained warm November weather the mountain remained only ¼ open until December storms. This year’s storm was a nearly uniform 4 feet from Main Lodge up, so Mammoth was 60% open since Nov. 12. With snowmaking assistance there are no coverage issues on lower groomers from Chair 8 across to chair 12. The ungroomed snow is getting a bit stiff and I’m sure after this weekend there will be even more moguls, but there has still been no melt freeze.
More snow is needed to improve access to many of the upper steeps, and chairs 9, 14 and 22 need more snow to open. There was some optimism a few days ago about next week, but now it looks like scattered showers over several days totaling a foot at best.
This early storm was much different from last year’s. Often the early storms have a high rain/snow line which is the reason Mammoth does better than Tahoe. This storm was cold but the center of the track was well south of Tahoe and favored Mammoth. The past two weeks have remained cold, allowing Mammoth to make snow across all of its lower groomed runs from Main Lodge to Canyon Lodge. Canyon’s parking has been open the past two weekends, and now its facilities are fully open for Thanksgiving, probably for the first time since 2004.
Mammoth has new fan guns to make snow, these on Broadway.
This was our second run Wednesday after Stump Alley.
Snow at the top of the mountain is not quite as deep as last November.
The metal band by Liz’ lower leg is at the 4-foot mark. Last year’s depth was exactly 4 feet on Oct. 29 and about 5 feet on Nov. 10.
Here Liz is at the top of Climax, which I did not ski Wednesday but did Thursday.
Mono Lake in the background has a thin layer of surface fog.
Wednesday it warmed to the upper 30’s, but the open terrain remains 90+% packed powder. It was sunny with a mild upslope wind that made the entries to groomed Cornice and Scotty’s firm for a few turns. Lonnie was here last Wednesday-Friday with stronger winds but they were from the west and deposited more loose snow.
While snow on the upper steeps is good, many of the entries on top are rocky.
Here’s my view riding chair 23 after we skied Cornice and Liz continued lower down. .
Drop Out 1 looked good but there were lots of rocks at the top. I dropped in by Drop Out 3 and traversed back to Drop Out 1 below the rocks. Snow was smooth chalk but little loose snow, so DFU with early season confined fall lines.
Next time up 23 I skied Skyline to Scotty’s. I could see only one very marginal entry to the steeps on the Wipe Out side of chair 23. I cruised St. Anton to the gondola base. View up from there:
The longest line on Wednesday was for the beginner chair 11 at lower right. Broadway is at left and the race course runs are at center, and they were in great shape on this trip.
From the top gondola I skied Dave’s Run.
Dave’s has wide open smooth chalk with no rocks dropping in, but the slog over there took some work with wind and more uphill at the end than usual.
Though I had only skied about 10K vertical, I needed to back off and ski a few groomers on chairs 4 and 16. Liz met me at Canyon and we headed for chair 5.
I think those moguls built up last weekend, as Lonnie said it was fairly smooth a week ago. Dry Creek usually gets snow deposition, but Lonnie said it was rocky so we avoided that. We first skied those bumps near the lift, then Face of 5 which was much smoother.
We then headed toward chair 3 but I was lured into China Bowl, which though confined had soft snow and exited into Coyote, bumpy in the middle but groomed on the lower pitch.
We crossed via chair 2 to the race courses. Liz on Andy’s:
We took an encore on Fascination. We finished by skiing ungroomed chalk down the chair 3 liftline, then Mambo to the car.
I skied 23,300 vertical from about 9:15 – 2:00. That was good enough for first day of the season, particularly since we would be skiing with Adam the next day.
Since the chair 2 parking lot was full at 9AM Wednesday, we got there at 8:30 on Thanksgiving Day. After one run on Stump Adam joined us. We skied Face of 3 to Broadway, and noticed riding chair 1 that the racers get Thanksgiving Day off. So we skied Fascination and Andy’s before taking the gondola to the top.
Thursday was a bit warmer overall but the upslope wind on top was much stronger. The lower 2/3 of Cornice had more loose snow than on Wednesday. Scotty’s was good too, though I fell once, started to slide but got my skis below me before I got very far. On the next gondola Liz repeated Cornice while Adam and I skied Climax.
The upper part of Climax had some irregular styrofoam type snow, but it smoothed out on these slots between the rocks. We skied to McCoy and took another gondola to Dave’s, then Solitude and Face of 5, after which Liz rejoined us. Here we are at the top of 5.
We had noticed some people skiing east from Solitude’s saddle toward chair 9. 9 was closed but Eagle had just opened for the holiday so we skied Quicksilver, which was a touch of April in November. It’s a wide open groomer, SE facing with almost no traffic at 11:45AM. The sun is not strong enough for corn, but it was very forgiving soft packed powder.
We crossed the mountain on 15, 16 and 2 to 23. Liz skied another Cornice while I skied Drop Out 3 and Adam followed my line from yesterday to Drop Out 1. Next Adam and I repeated that traverse entry but continued it into Wipe Out 1 to avoid the excessive rocks entering from the Wipe Out side. The aprons below the chair 23 runs are mostly smooth windbuff now.
We met Liz at chair 1, rode up to 3 and finished with China Bowl/Coyote. I skied 21,600 vertical from 8:45 – 1:30. We got on the road and with some research Liz found the Still Life Café in Independence, which served us a Thanksgiving dinner at 4PM.
Overall I’m pleased that after 11 weeks the bunion surgery is a non-issue inside a ski boot, though it hurts a bit taking the boot off. Exercise has been interrupted during this time. I was able to swim for 2+ weeks in October but I did not resume hiking or yoga until Nov. 6.
On Thursday we had a few 5 minute lines on chairs 1, 2 and the gondola, but it’s likely to be very busy the next few days as this has been the most extensive mid-November skiing at Mammoth since 2004. Before that, you have to go back to 1981 and 1982. I was there Thanksgiving Saturday/Sunday in 1981, and supposedly one of the days that weekend set a record at the time of 22,000 people on the hill. FYI Base Ikon is not blacked out for Thanksgiving.
As noted, last season had the Oct. 29 opening, but with sustained warm November weather the mountain remained only ¼ open until December storms. This year’s storm was a nearly uniform 4 feet from Main Lodge up, so Mammoth was 60% open since Nov. 12. With snowmaking assistance there are no coverage issues on lower groomers from Chair 8 across to chair 12. The ungroomed snow is getting a bit stiff and I’m sure after this weekend there will be even more moguls, but there has still been no melt freeze.
More snow is needed to improve access to many of the upper steeps, and chairs 9, 14 and 22 need more snow to open. There was some optimism a few days ago about next week, but now it looks like scattered showers over several days totaling a foot at best.
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