Saturday was Mammoth's spring skiing at its finest, though it was still winter on much of the steeps. 20 inches new Monday, warming late in the week, but with some wind according to the locals. Saturday morning was completely clear with no wind, probably close to 50F by midday. Some very thin clouds appeared by 1PM, along with a light breeze. This was a positive for the snow, which was already soft but never got sticky.

Powderqueen's Black Diamond Verdict skis conveniently arrived Thursday night (via a second owner Eric who didn't like them for the East) so I brought them and tried them out Saturday morning. First on Stump Alley, Broadway and face of 3 groomers, quite comfortable. Then I went up top, over to Dave's and down Gold Hill to chair 9. Dave's had smooth chalk, Gold Hill gets morning sun but was still a bit firm 9:30AM. The Verdicts were OK, but I could tell it was going to be a great day and the K2 Recons would be more suitable, so I headed back to the car at chair 2 for the exchange. I went via face of 5, a mistake as 5 had melt/frozen and hadn't even started to loosen that early.

Back on the Recons I knew to head up top: groomed Cornice was great, Climax was dry snow but chopped up, so back to Dave's and Gold Hill. View down Dave's to the morning corn on 9 and 25 with Crowley Lake and White Mts in background


I skied one groomer plus the ungroomed liftline of 25, then over to 22 for an Avalanche Chute before lunch. View down Avy1 from the lift.

Snow in Avy1 was outstanding soft packed powder. When I skied down to Canyon Lodge for lunch I noted chair 16 was not running. It had an electrical problem for its last weekend open, unfortunate as there was a pond skimming event at Canyon 2PM Sunday. We did not go to it as we figured it would be tough getting out afterwards. Overall crowds were light and I never waited for a lift more than a minute or two all weekend.

After lunch I went back to 22 for Avy2, which was just as good as Avy1 and a preview for much of the afternoon on chair 23.

With the ideal conditions the top was quite popular. The steeps had the soft packed powder. The aprons were packed and beginning to soften, not completely smooth but you could still make big turns most of the time. I skied Drop Out and Wipe Outs 1&2 accordingly. Here's the view the other way across groomed Scotty's to Monument and the Paranoids.

The Paranoid area tilts a bit too much east for April and was mostly sun affected. The only line with winter snow for much vertical was skier's right of Paranoid 2.

Then I went up the gondola to hit Hangman's. Wind deposition has not been kind to Hangman's this season; it's unusual to see it this constricted in a 500-inch year.

The snow was as good as the other top runs but I had to sidestep past those rocks. Hangman's may be gone by Memorial Day, surprising as I know Patrick remembers skiing it in July.

About 2:30PM I went off the back for one run that might have been better with the Verdicts. Dropping off Roadrunner is a broad open slope. The snow had softened about the right amount but was not smooth. As it flattened I made bigger turns, gained speed and eventually caught a tip, ejected and splattered head first into the fortunately forgiving spring snow.

I did a couple of runs on chair 14, one of them a first for me at Mammoth! This chute is rarely passable (thus its informal name No Passos), but must have been beneficiary of the wind this season. View from above.

Looking up about halfway down.

It's not that steep and the spaces between rocks were comfortable. But it has irregular sun exposure so the surface is variable.

Last time up 14 I skied Monument back to the frontside, then Gravy Chute and a couple of groomers on 1 and 3, finished with Christmas Bowl to Coyote and the car. Total for the day was 37,000, 8th highest vertical lifetime. Needless to say, a much more interesting day than the 45,900 at Sun Valley last month.

Another indicator of how good a day this was came from Andrew. He's snowboarding now as he was never able to get comfortable in ski boots from 2005 - 2008. I'm sure admin remembers how Andrew would ski 3 or 4 runs a day in Utah and quit, complaining about his sore feet. He boarded once over Memorial weekend last season and this was his first day this year. He stayed out all day and did about 27,000.