MAMMOTH 22/23 - LIFE'S A BEACH

[supermodel159]

^I heard conflicting reports of causalities vs injuries. I'll keep those internal until an official statement is made.

[~mikey b]

Emergency crews have made great progress clearing U.S. 395 between Lee Vining and State Route 167. Caltrans District 9 conducted avalanche mitigation today and will do another round tomorrow as we work toward a reopening of the highway.

[powdork]

https://www.2news.com/news/five-peop...6210ec2f0.html


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[Truckee Joe]

In town now. Made the long journey down the 95 to 6. Looks like I might not have to go that way home. Yippee.
Looks to be chilly and windy up there tomorrow. I hope the top opens.


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[TEXASS]

Their is a SHITTON of snow in the Owens Valley

[45hill]

^I heard conflicting reports of causalities vs injuries. I'll keep those internal until an official statement is made.

The manager is in Reno and is in stable condition

[Eastern Sierra Skier]

It’s gone fully blue up here!


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[Atlas Q. Powmonger]

Waited for 3 hours for the top yesterday, just to go ski buff on 22 and watch it open about 2:30. Got one lap in, pretty dense.




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[Eastern Sierra Skier]

Turned into a pretty good day of skiing on Friday, especially if you skied til closing and caught the late afternoon, surprise opening of the Top. Friday had a mix of conditions from ranging from slabby new snow, to wind affected sastrugi, killer wind buff on ch 22 and thick, heavy pow up Top. Skied everyday last week starting Sunday at 12:00 pm until closing yesterday. Friday was by far the busiest day, but other than the G1 line at the end of the day lines were short to non existent.


Spent the majority of the day riding ch 22. The cliff band that's under the chair line is gone, completely buried. It's just a run now as people were making turns down it.


The chair line of 22 is roped off in a number of places, this being the roll over at the top of Viva. The chair height is so low I could drag the tails of my skis on the snow.


Top of Viva. You could shake hands with these guys as they went past.


As for the skiing....epic wind buff. The Avies were firing all day. WSW winds of 30+ mph kept the snow moving and refilling each lap.
Avi 2 here, as filled in as it will ever be.. Entrance right off the top is super easy, ski the upper section then after the "throat", cut to the skiers left and ski the smooth ridge on the lower right side down to cat track. Repeat.


Avi 1, IMO had the best snow and was the go to run of the day Friday. A few bumps at the top, but the middle section down past the rocks was really good. In this photo I counted 10 people skiing it, and that might be the most I've seen in there at the same time.


Line of the day was skiers left of Avi 1, just past the throat cut hard skiers left into smooth ridge of the lower bowl for a few more turns down to the cat track, back to ch 22, non stop. A word of caution, if you come into the bowl from Avi 2, throw in a speed check. I came down out of Avi 2 carrying a lot of speed and hit some gnarly wind rip under the arrow. Thought maybe I could straight line thru it and run it out. No. Blew out of both skis, rag dolled and came to a stop right under 16, then got heckled by some kids from the chair. Good times.


Chair 5 had some of the same wind blown snow in spots as well. Dry Creek and the Triangle area were really good. This was late in the day after the Top had closed.


The Top yesterday at 1:00 p.m.


It was almost 3:00 when ski patrol pulled the closure behind ch 1 out towards ch 23. I didn't think the Top was going to open so I skied out to take some pics.




Took a couple of photos and skied down to ch 1 just after 3:00 p.m. I was half way up when I see a skier drop into the noids, followed by two more. Got off the chair and hauled ass for Mid Chalet. Line was gigantic so I went to bottom Gondola. Not much better but I got on.


Looking up at Kiwi's. I got off the gondi as the light went flat and clouds were rolling in. Took the summer road down to the Paranoids and skied P2. Snow was thick with bit of crust on it so at the bottom I hooked left and skied over under Philippe's just in time to see a couple guys come down out of Kiwi's going really fast. The track in the photo is his. Wish i could have gotten my phone out and got the video. Well done gentleman.


I ended up skiing this for my last run of the day. Got some great storm days in last week and an epic wind buff sesh Friday. Hoping that high pressure sets in soon.
Enjoy the mtn.

[liv2ski]

Skied Mammoth last week and likely had my best day in 10 years on Monday. The snow is so deep now we ended up skiing so many lines I have never done before, it was nuts. The pow got heavy on Wednesday sadly, but by Friday was pretty dried out and supportive. What a week, I am exhausted today.
I wish I could stop to take photos, but ESS does a better job so fuck it. That zone he shared on 5 by Dry Creek was a blast. Many runs were done in that area.

[Atlas Q. Powmonger]

Saturday for me was the same. I was supposed to ski with my son but he was sick. Since I was solo on the mountain for the first time in many years I figured I might as well do the fear tour.

Did cowboy for my first time, although it probably merits an asterisk given how filled in it is. Balls was about 5’. Considered kiwi proper, but I wasn’t feeling the scraped entry so did the traverse in. I’ve never seen top of the world get skied by so many people in a day. Everyone was checking things off their bucket list!

[Hopeless Sinner]

Good work !!!

[Boomer28]

Epic pics guys. Was a great long weekend all around...hadn't been up in 4 weeks and the snow back then was bonkers.

Good point on the "*" on some of the upper terrain this year, I skied a bunch of stuff that I would have rarely considered in past years...

[Long duc dong]

Nice shots guys!!

Atlas, haven't checked this thread in a while and missed the offer of showing me TOTW lines. Thanks! Wish I'd had you there to show me into Kiwi. I thought of trying to find the traverse myself, but I felt a bit sketched and opted for p4 and Philppes. The traverse might be easier to find than I think it will be, but I would rather find it with someone who knows.

Which line is your second shot? I can't quite tell, haven't been up there in a while.



Wednesday and Thursday were fun, stormy type days. Got good laps on chair 5.

Friday things popped, but as everyone said the top didn't open until around 2:30. We got some laps in on chair 5, then hiked Starr Chute, which was fun, although the pow was a bit wind affected. We then went to the backside and skied towards chair 14. It was fun, but there really weren't all that many turns to be had as it is a bit flat and short. Still, the snow was less wind affected than the front side.

At this point we doubted the top was going to open. We took chair 13 up and hiked up the groomer, eventually stopping where the groomer goes under chair 14. We wanted a longer pow lap than before. As we were hiking up a girl skied past us on the groomer. We asked how she got there, she said upper gondi opened. AHHHHHH!!!!!! Bad timing on our part. We skied down to chair 13, the snow was nice, then took 13 and gunned it to the gondi to try to get a lap. They ended up cutting of the upper gondi a few people ahead of us. Oh well.

Saturday was a great top day. While I didn't check off Kiwi or a TOTW line, P3, P4 and Philippe's were fun, and Hangman's was insane. The lines for the top were solid on Saturday, but it was a small price to pay for how much fun it was. I think the snow on the top might have been better after it was cut up. Saturday was an absolute blast.

Here is a quick video. Philippe's is better than I make it look. I wish I had gotten a chance to ski it again, but I was going to get on the road and had time for one more lap. It's easier to get back over to Canyon from Hangman's, so I chose that. Philippe's has some ledgy weirdness, it usually does, but the snow in it was fun. The snow below both Hangers and Philippe's was awesome.

[Atlas Q. Powmonger]

Which line is your second shot? I can't quite tell, haven't been up there in a while.

Werners... at least I was pretty sure it was and then I went to check the MMSP Top of the World website map and see that it's gone now. Which made me sad and made me question the lines up there. I tried to recreate that old map with my amazing .ppt skills - is this right? I've heard people talk about other lines (pressure frame, terraces?), are those a thing? What's the line looker's right of Juniors? Also, what is the etymology of those names? Who was Werner? Was there a Mr. (or Mrs.) Balls to the Wall? So many questions...

[Long duc dong]

Atlas,

That's what I figured. I thought that was Werner's, but I haven't been up there since May 2011 or so.

That is a really great map. Thanks for posting!

They seem to have gotten rid of some some of the stuff from the MMSP site. I'm not sure why.

[fomofo]

Who was Werner?

Probably Buddy Werner. If you’ve got a couple minutes this web page might also provide some interesting reading. The second half has a nice bio of Dave McCoy.

https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?tag=dave-mccoy

[Ridgehippy]

Not the same as the old path atlas pictures, but here's a birds-eye view that tries to catch most of the run names not on the official trail map.
Somebody on the old Mammoth forums put it together years ago; got another version with a steepness overlay somewhere.

[Eastern Sierra Skier]

Top just before opening.


The wind machine was on today and the skiing lit up in places. I'll post more pics later.

[KillerMonkey]

Top just before opening.


The wind machine was on today and the skiing lit up in places. I'll post more pics later.

Avy chutes was firing all day

[Eastern Sierra Skier]

Avy chutes was firing all day

Yes they were. Spent most of the day lapping them until the Top opened around 2:00 p.m.


Avi 2 at 4:00 p.m. It skied better & better throughout the day. Only problem was the number of people skiing it at times.
I counted 14 people in it at one point.


The lower bowl of Avi 2 was velvet. Couldn't get a good photo with all the snow swirling around.


From left to right, skied Hanger's, Varmits, and MJB's on Friday. All really fun. Hangman's is ridiculously wide.
Plan is to get some runs in early today and then post up somewhere and watch the NCAA's. GO AZTECS!

[Eastern Sierra Skier]

Waited 40 minutes at ch 4 and it still wasn’t loading. Less wind than yesterday so I not sure what’s up. Fuck it, I’m going to June.

[liv2ski]

Aaah yes, Saturday at Mammoth. June is the call or something else entirely.

[KillerMonkey]

Eagles closed. Sounds like another condo blew up. With everything else on wind hold. Turning out to be pretty typical saturday

[PowerWhore7]

3/30...any maggots in the pic?





BRUCE!!!!