abc
Well-known member
Did an (almost) 2 week trip of southern and central California:
-- Mammoth, 3 days
-- Homewood
-- Alpine Meadow
-- Mt Rose
Orginally planned for a week at Mammoth, situation was such I could have almost 2 weeks instead of just 1. Well, the more the merrier. So I added the Tahoe part, which has a tale of its own...
--------- PART I: Mammoth ----------
Flight into Las Vages instead of LAX, just because I scored a better flight. Then lucked out with a SUV at a better rate than a econo-box. Vacation is looking up...
More over, I got a screaming deal staying next to the main lodge. So I'm doing it in style and without breaking the bank!
Arrived at Mammoth and hooked up with some friends. Was informed they had a powder day the day before and the forecast was in the 40's and 50's the rest of the week!
First day was mostly groomer day, since I was with a bunch of people who're blue cruisers. Only at the very end of the day, when everyone was ready to call it quits, I decided to take it up a notch and came down one of the "chutes", according to the trail map. (not really chutes. you can still makes wide turns and even travers a bit)
Day 2 was forecasted to be super windy as the day goes. So I decided to do the top ridge in the morning, before my group even make it up the mountain. When I got out of the gandola and put my skis on, I nearly got blown right off the ridge!!! It must have been 40+mph at the minimum. The day's weather condition was winds gust in excess of 60mph. I don't know if I was in those "moments" of high gust, but it was the highest wind I've ever experienced on skis. Really had to get those edges in to stay on track! Needless to say, the ridge itself was totally void of snow, all blown away by the wind.
But what the wind took from the ridge, it deposits it on the slope!!! So despite not having any storm, we actually got thick, fluffy powder on the slopes off the ridge. :beer: And as soon as one skier passes, his/her tracks would be erased by the new snow blown in by the wind. It's fresh track each run, like in an actual powder day! Lapping the upper section of the gondola every 10-15 minutes, it was just skier heaven for half a day! (the rest of the upper mountain lifts were all closed due to high wind)
Just when I got my fill of the fresh powder off the ridge and was just thinking of resting my legs while grabing a luch, I noticed they just started turning the other upper mountain lifts that's been close all morning. I figure there must been tons of powder under those lifts that hadn't been skied yet. So lunch have to wait. Always the BC skier in heart, I have water on my back and couple of powerbars in the pack. That was enough to keep me going. And going I did till the lift closed at 4!:grin:
My legs should have been tired. Though skiing "hero snow" must be easy work. And with the excitement of the new terrain and fresh powder, I just didn't notice any fatique.
Day 3 was a bit of a repeat of the previous day, only better! It's Friday so the slopes were busier. But the crowd also includes another friend of mine who's more an advance skier so I had someone to ski with. And after a good day and a half of winds depositing powder to the steeper section of the ridge, it's finally skiable!!! We did several passes of the chutes on both side of chair 23. Light, fluffy snow filled steep makes for the highlight of the day.
And just when we were finally ready to call it quits, we happened upon some really deep powder hidden on an easy "black-blue" run. So we did a double take and lapped that up, TWICE!
That, provides the fitting end of the first part of skiing Mammoth.
It's Friday night and had I choose to stay at Mammoth, it would have cost a small fortune, being CA school spring break weekend. So instead, I hopped into my car and started driving up towards Tahoe...
(no photo this part of the trip, too busy skiing)
-- Mammoth, 3 days
-- Homewood
-- Alpine Meadow
-- Mt Rose
Orginally planned for a week at Mammoth, situation was such I could have almost 2 weeks instead of just 1. Well, the more the merrier. So I added the Tahoe part, which has a tale of its own...
--------- PART I: Mammoth ----------
Flight into Las Vages instead of LAX, just because I scored a better flight. Then lucked out with a SUV at a better rate than a econo-box. Vacation is looking up...
More over, I got a screaming deal staying next to the main lodge. So I'm doing it in style and without breaking the bank!
Arrived at Mammoth and hooked up with some friends. Was informed they had a powder day the day before and the forecast was in the 40's and 50's the rest of the week!
First day was mostly groomer day, since I was with a bunch of people who're blue cruisers. Only at the very end of the day, when everyone was ready to call it quits, I decided to take it up a notch and came down one of the "chutes", according to the trail map. (not really chutes. you can still makes wide turns and even travers a bit)
Day 2 was forecasted to be super windy as the day goes. So I decided to do the top ridge in the morning, before my group even make it up the mountain. When I got out of the gandola and put my skis on, I nearly got blown right off the ridge!!! It must have been 40+mph at the minimum. The day's weather condition was winds gust in excess of 60mph. I don't know if I was in those "moments" of high gust, but it was the highest wind I've ever experienced on skis. Really had to get those edges in to stay on track! Needless to say, the ridge itself was totally void of snow, all blown away by the wind.
But what the wind took from the ridge, it deposits it on the slope!!! So despite not having any storm, we actually got thick, fluffy powder on the slopes off the ridge. :beer: And as soon as one skier passes, his/her tracks would be erased by the new snow blown in by the wind. It's fresh track each run, like in an actual powder day! Lapping the upper section of the gondola every 10-15 minutes, it was just skier heaven for half a day! (the rest of the upper mountain lifts were all closed due to high wind)
Just when I got my fill of the fresh powder off the ridge and was just thinking of resting my legs while grabing a luch, I noticed they just started turning the other upper mountain lifts that's been close all morning. I figure there must been tons of powder under those lifts that hadn't been skied yet. So lunch have to wait. Always the BC skier in heart, I have water on my back and couple of powerbars in the pack. That was enough to keep me going. And going I did till the lift closed at 4!:grin:
My legs should have been tired. Though skiing "hero snow" must be easy work. And with the excitement of the new terrain and fresh powder, I just didn't notice any fatique.
Day 3 was a bit of a repeat of the previous day, only better! It's Friday so the slopes were busier. But the crowd also includes another friend of mine who's more an advance skier so I had someone to ski with. And after a good day and a half of winds depositing powder to the steeper section of the ridge, it's finally skiable!!! We did several passes of the chutes on both side of chair 23. Light, fluffy snow filled steep makes for the highlight of the day.
And just when we were finally ready to call it quits, we happened upon some really deep powder hidden on an easy "black-blue" run. So we did a double take and lapped that up, TWICE!
That, provides the fitting end of the first part of skiing Mammoth.
It's Friday night and had I choose to stay at Mammoth, it would have cost a small fortune, being CA school spring break weekend. So instead, I hopped into my car and started driving up towards Tahoe...
(no photo this part of the trip, too busy skiing)