Date: 04/06/02
Days: 2
Resort: Mammoth Mtn.
Hours: Day
Equipment: Alpine
Rating: 8
Primary-Surface: Granular
Secondary-Surfaces: Crusty, Icy, Hardpack, Slush
Gender: Male
Age: 49
Ability: Expert
E-mail: crockeraf@aol.com
Loved: Weather, corn snow on 9 and 25
Hated: Top runs frozen solid Saturday and some on Sunday
Closed: None officially
Liftline-Waits: <5 min Saturday, none Sunday
Moguls: Good where sun exposed, bulletproof on top

In 25 years of skiing Mammoth I have never seen spring conditions advance this far so early. The past 2 weeks have been extremely warm. Conditions are currently like a normal year in late April to early May. There is virtually no snow in town; grass is growing along the walkways which are usually still piled high with snowbanks. I believe that Chair 3 and the upper gondola will run to Memorial Day, but that the lower mountain will run out of snow far before then.

Saturday's weather was clear morning and patchy cloud afternoon. All of the lower mountain and sunny areas like 9 & 14 had good spring conditions. Anything north facing on the upper mountain stayed hard, and virtually everyone who skied up there was on the groomed parts of Cornice, Scotty's, face of 3 or Solitude on Chair 5. There was primo corn snow on the groomed runs of Chairs 9 and 25, but much the off-piste was too irregular and occasionally crusty to ski smoothly.

Sunday was warmer, but the time change resulted in groomed runs softening at the same nominal time as Saturday. Once again the best corn was on 9 and 25, but the warmer weather greatly expanded the off-piste terrain which was enjoyable to ski. The east facing runs on chair 22, most of the face of 3 and some of the terrain on top softened to an easily edgeable surface. Climax and Wipe Out in late afternoon were still on the hard side of ideal, but far from the boilerplate of Saturday. Since Mammoth is such a big place, there was plenty that was good, enough to ski over 60K vertical for the weekend. And this is on a weekend far worse than normal for early April. To be reminded of the best that April in Mammoth can be, check out my report from 3 years ago today: http://www.skisocal.org/cgi/ski.pl/detail/144;98-99