April 25-26, 2017 Mammoth

The last few days have been a mix of clouds with high winds and occasional light rain, but today was a beauty. Temperatures reached in the 50's with some high winds. We picked up our tickets for 2 days of skiig using our Mountain Collective passes. On Wednesday we had planned to do some backcountry touring in the area that we've toured for years. But as we got out of the van all ready to go, it began drizzling; so we got back in the van. After an hour there was a sun break and we begin the process again, but then the drizzle started again. After 3 tries, forget it! So we went to our favorite backcountry shop, Mammoth Mountaineering.

So it's Thursday and here we are at Mammoth to ride the express lifts and have a cruising day. The lifts start running at 8:30am, and after one run we went back to the van (which was 50 feet from the Stump Alley Express lift – not bad!). Forty minutes later we started out a second time and it was perfect. On Sunday they closed the south side of the resort which has access to Eagle Lodge and Canyon Lodge. But the remaining part of the resort is BIG. We cruised the trails off Stump Alley, Roller Coaster, Gold Rush, and High-Five – all express lifts. We could not stop until our quads said 'Enough'. So we decided to save some energy for tomorrow. Great terrain, photos, and spring snow in the sun.

Friday, April 26: The temperature dropped 10 degrees overnight, and we waited until 10am to start. The guy in the car next to us started at 8:30am and was back to his car in 20 minutes. It was not as creamy as yesterday. We cruised the rest of the day on different lifts and let the sun be our guide. We had an interesting ride up the lift with a USA Team instructor. He had finished a training session, and one of his people just had a nasty accident. We enjoyed talking about all of our various ski injuries. He's not had any 'serious' injuries, just various broken bones! He was impressed with Jill's 2 new hips and ACL reconstructions and that she's still skiing in her 70's. Two sun drenched spring skiing days – we really like this place. It will be interesting to see what changes take place with their new management (they were just bought by Aspen).