Ski season is properly underway in California. Sure some rinky dinky little resort on the boring side of Donner Pass may have opened up a little ribbon of snow last week but this weekend, things got serious. Mammoth Mountain not only opened for the 2009-10 season, the second earliest opening in their storied history, but they forgot the keys to the cash register so skiing was free. Taking a page from Crested Butte’s playbook, Mammoth handed out free lift tickets to anyone who could make it to the main lodge on Friday, October 16, and there were certainly no shortage of takers. Those who had an extra ’sick’ day, a brilliant excuse to play hooky, or those who in these trying economic times found themselves unemployed Friday all converged on Mammoth like it was Christmas, New Years, and July 4th all rolled into one. The crowds were massive and lift lines stretched up the hill, but the combination of opening day and free skiing kept spirits high. Temperatures in the mid 60s didn’t hurt either as the masses crowded onto the main lodge deck to soak up some sun.
Mammoth got a huge dump a week or so ago but then suffered a bout of the dreaded “R” word immediately thereafter. The water lines down the upper mountain were well visible but a mostly man-made base still made for great early season skiing. Chair 1 and 3 spun for the whole day and even Chair 23 spun in the afternoon which meant nearly top-to-bottom skiing for free on opening day. You just can’t beat that. —Wes Berkshire
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 12:28 am and is filed under Trip Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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