Western North America Conditions 2025/26

Tony Crocker said:
Not at all. It's all desert at 4,000 feet or lower until the last 30 miles.
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That's what I thought. Once you get outside of Mammoth, it's easy driving. You don't ever experience the potential of a 6-10 hour drive home with tons of slow and scary trucks.

This weekend could have been fun at Tahoe - specifically tree-skiing at Northstar. However, the snowline was at 8.5-9k feet yesterday (rain everywhere), everything needs to be resurfaced, and snowfall might continue into Monday, creating lots of difficult roads for a trip home.
 
More snow.
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The disparity between Schweitzer and Whitefish continues. Schweitzer has improved from 3% open Christmas Eve, but is still at only 41%. Fernie is up to 75% while Whitefish is 94% open.
 
The fun part of those lift lines is that probably 90% are locals coming out of the woodwork for a pow day, but they all fervently believe the lines are exclusivly from Ikon destination skiers.

As they say "We have met the enemy and it is us".
 
Other than the torchlight parade I participated in the other night at Brundage, I'm still waiting for the chance to get up on the mtn. I have midweek pass' at both Brundage and Tamarack that is invalid until Tuesday 1/6. While conditions here aren't good, it's been tough waiting this long for first turns.

However, i appreciate the pictures or craziness from other resorts (and I know it's been quite busy here)... that makes me feel a little better about not missing out on the madness.
 
EMSC said:
The fun part of those lift lines is that probably 90% are locals coming out of the woodwork for a pow day, but they all fervently believe the lines are exclusivly from Ikon destination skiers.
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Yep. It's locals loaded up with decently priced Ikon passes. I am sure 'unlimited' Solitude might have been worse.

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I am a bit doom-scrolling. I thought Tahoe might have good conditions/fresh snow this weekend, and Northstar can be fun storm skiing in its trees on the Backside and Lookout/Martis. However, storms started warm - rain/snow line 7-8k.


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Sometimes patience is in order. Mammoth’s upper lifts have not been open since before the Christmas storm. Hopefully we get a shot later this week. Anyone who follows Utah skiing should know that the recent modest storms were not going to open that much more terrain. So those lines were no surprise, and if they bother you, you should not be there.
 
At mammoth today. Not a lot open as expected. Nice to ski a bit in the blizzard but lines are just too long. Without Canyon open the whole place is tough to get around without getting stuck in 20 minute lines. Tomorrow should be good, storm should be done by daybreak.
 
socal said:
At mammoth today. Not a lot open as expected. Nice to ski a bit in the blizzard but lines are just too long. Without Canyon open the whole place is tough to get around without getting stuck in 20 minute lines. Tomorrow should be good, storm should be done by daybreak.
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It looks like you could work your way over to Main Lodge and back to Canyon by 10 am or so. Was the lower mountain just jammed with holiday crowds?

Despite the Sierra getting nice snow, Mammoth and Tahoe areas all had operational issues with upper mountain lifts and stormy, windy weather. And Tahoe had unfortunate, detrimental rain at elevations up to 8.5k ft on some days. Kirkwood looks like it had the best holiday period of any Tahoe-area resort.
 
socal said:
Without Canyon open
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Per Mammoth website dated 10:35AM, Canyon Lodge was not closed but chair 16 was (probably wind), forcing skiers at Canyon to use 17 and then 4 to cross the lower mountain. Chairs 1 and 2 were reported open, along with 8 and 15 going the other way from Canyon. Only these lifts open on a weekend are indeed a recipe for lift lines. Did you consider going to June?
 
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Tony Crocker said:
Per Mammoth website dated 10:35AM, Canyon Lodge was not closed but chair 16 was (probably wind), forcing skiers at Canyon to use 17 and then 4 to cross the lower mountain. Chairs 1 and 2 were reported open, along with 8 and 15 going the other way from Canyon. Only these lifts open on a weekend are indeed a recipe for lift lines. Did you consider going to June?
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Thought about it but just figured we would tough it out today. Wife wasn’t feeling well on Friday so we planned to drive up Sunday but she felt better yesterday and we toughed it out and got in later in the evening. Today was a bonus day. I got a handful of fun laps off eagle under the closed chair 25 that were fun. Skiing off Rollercoaster was fun but the line for Schoolyard coupled with so many stops got everyone really cold by the time we got over there.

Family trip. I did 4 laps of the untracked over by 25 to end the day with no line for Eagle, where we are staying , video below.

Link to a video
 
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