My California - Mammoth Mountain Round 3

derekrichardson (67)adminin SoCal Steemit • 3 years ago (edited)

For this weeks Show Us Your California contest by @socalsteemit I head up route 395 once again for another awesome snowboarding trip at...

Mammoth Mountain!!

This is my third and most likley final trip to Mammoth for this winter season. You can see my first two trips here and here. Heavy winds and high traffic made the drive up the 395 a little extra exciting. In a few areas of the Mojave the dust was blowing through the air so thick that it was hard to see the highway at all. And between Ridgecrest and Olancha there was a vehicle fire on the side of the highway which had caught a lot of the brush along the road on fire. Although the fire department was already there dealing with it, it backed up the traffic pretty bad. Then upon arriving in Mammoth I drove into a snowstorm! Luckily I have 4wd and the snow was light so it wasn't a big deal. The snowstorm continued all night and into our first ski day. Despite the storm we headed up to the mountain to get some runs in. But with the snow, the cold, the heavy winds, low visibility, and the long lift lines due to most of the mountain being closed... it was pretty miserable and we called it a day after just four runs.

Arriving at the condo

Watching the snowstorm from the deck

Stormy morning

Riding chair 8

Mom and I enduring the storm on chair 8

What it looked like when we decided to call it

Day two started out cloudy and there were a few snow flurries, but eventually the clouds broke up a bit and the storm subsided and the mountain opened up and we were able to get in a lot more skiing. But it was still super cold, probably the coldest day I've ever had at Mammoth. At one point we checked the temperature and it was -2F!! Luckily we were bundled up well enough to enjoy the day.

Riding up chair 16 in the morning

Views from chair 21

The upper mountain, still in the clouds

Stopping in at "The Mill"

Chair 10 and chair 2

Stopping in at 'McCoy station" (where it was -2F)

Views from the top of chair 3

Looking up at the top from the Saddle bowl

Watching the clouds break from chair 2

On day three the sun came out and the temps rose up into the twenties giving us a beautiful day for skiing. We skiied all over the mountain from chair 9 all the way over to the back side including a bunch of runs from the top!

Checking out the morning corduroy from chair 16

Views of the Mammoth crest from the top of chair 8

Views from "Goldhill"

The bottom of chair 9

The bottom of chair 3

A crowded mountain summit

Views from "Upper road runner"

Riding chair 23

The view from the top of chair 23

Doing runs on the back side

Taking a break on the back side at "The outpost"

Mom making the short hike from chair 14 to the top of "Scotty's"

Chair 23 from the top of "Scotty's"

The "Main park" terrain park from Main lodge

Evening views from the condo

On our fourth and final day of the trip we got started early anticipating larger crowds. After just a few warm up runs we headed straight up to the top where we spent most of our day doing laps on the "Cornice bowl" and "Scotty's". It was a beautiful day and we hit the slopes hard all morning, then we finished off our day with a trip into "The village" for some delicious food at one of our favorite spots to eat, the "Pita Pit".

Arriving early at "Canyon lodge"

Waiting for chair 16 to open

Looking at the top of the mountain

The Gondola arriving at the top

Mom on the top

Overlooking "McCoy station"

Looking up the "Cornice bowl"

Looking at "Scotty's" from chair 23

Views from the Gondola

The top of chair 14

Views from the back side

Arriving back at a very crowded "Canyon lodge"

Wooly the mascot entertaining people at "Canyon lodge"

All in all it was another great trip to Mammoth! And although this was likely my last trip for the season, winter is not done here in Cali and I'm still hoping to get in a couple more snowboarding trips to Big Bear before the season ends. Fingers crossed!!