Winter 09/10

North America » United States » California » Mammoth Lakes
March 11th 2010

Published: May 14th 2010

Another great season in Mammoth.

It turned out to be the third snowiest winter on record! Over 500 inches and it's still coming. We received eight inches last Tuesday, making the spring skiing very soft!

Hope everyone had a great winter. It's that time of the year again, time to pull the sandals out and put on some shorts.

Phil

Additional photos below

Photos: 20, Displayed: 20

Patrol

Early morning ski-cut on top of the Around-the-Corner Chutes.

Jump Rock

Compression ski-cut on Jump Rock. That's my track on looker's-right.

Getting Creative

Storms with high winds will leave large cornices on the ridges. We have to hang sticks of dynamite tied to flagging attached to a ski pole to place them in just the right spot.

Scott Quirsfeld

Mid-throw on top of the Drop-out Chutes

Cornice Bowl

Here's a group of patrollers hanging dynamite over the cornice on Cornice Bowl.

Explosion

You can see how the explosion was in just the right spot to blast the cornice.

Explosion 2

Top of the World

This sign is usually 30 feet tall, now it's only three feet tall.

Silverton Mountain

On March 6th, I drove out to Silverton with my patroller friend Ryan Copenhagen to meet my brother Matt. We skied one day at the backcountry ski resort and one day at Telluride. This is Matt and our guide Chris Engelhart, who is a former Mammoth Mountain Ski Patrolman.

Matt on Rope Dee Dope

We skied this chute and traversed to the right to begin our boot-pack up the Big Couloir to Little Pequena.

Matt

Little Pequena

We had a really fast group in Silverton so Chris took us up the Little Pequena couloir which hadn't been skied yet. We boot-packed up the Big Couloir and just as we were getting to the top the owner of the mountain got dropped off by the Helicopter and skied it right before us.