Mammoth w/Northrop Grumman
Who can resist going to Mammoth?
Low snow conditions (only 78" as of the February 3-4th weekend, with a 4-5' base) sucked, but all the main runs were pretty well covered, and the charter bus up was unusually quick, despite a serious accident completely closing 405N earlier in the day. We were... amazed.
And well-fed for the most part. Surprisingly, Cornice wasn't quite as bad as an ice, thin mess could be, but it was still a killer run. Scotty's wasn't even attempted-- it looked to be a narrow patch of barren ice for the top 100 feet. Eeeks! And on several runs, we still maanged to hit rocks and tree branches. By late afternoon, even normally fun runs such as Solitude started to get both thin and icy.
Cutting through The Acts was a nice test of skill, although once back on Downhill, I somehow managed to hit a patch of ice or a tree root and do a beautiful faceplant with associated garage sale. I decided to skip The Acts the rest of the day after that. Ow. Traversing Follow Me, thankfully, was the only really annoying thing we had to do. The three skiers didn't mind quite as much as the snowboarders did.
We even got to watch kickoff for the Superbowl before we left! Getting updates the rest of the way via cell phone and AIM kind of sucked, though. What was fun-- but also expensive-- was the drinking before, during, and after dinner. Hennessey's took quite a bit of our money with fun drinks like Cactus Coolers (which did taste much like their namesake) for several hours. The crowd on the dance floor also sucked, but it beat staying in the condos at Mammoth Estates and doing dull things like sleeping!
Videos, most of Barry and friends going down The Acts, are here.
