True American Skiing - Ski Mammoth Mountain (Mammoth Mountain)

Member Name: stevedpark

Product:	Mammoth Mountain
Date:	15/02/02 (242 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Deep snow, loads of trails, friendly people

Disadvantages: the desert drive

We flew to LA from London direct with Virgin Atlantic. This was the best flight to the states that I have been on, staff really friendly, TV?s in the back of all seats with lots of games, films etc to watch constantly. You get miffed when the food comes around as you have to stop playing Super Mario! This was really good as we had quite a few young children with us and we didn?t get a peep out of them the whole flight until it was time to get off the plane!!!

This is the only US ski resort I have been to and boy does this beat the pants of all the resorts I have been to in Europe.
Mammouth is typically US styled winter resort, wooden buildings etc
It is about 8 hours drive from LA, most of it though the desert which becomes very boring after the first 5 minutes if you have never been in a desert before, although you get to go past Edwards Air Force Base and a brilliant Levi outlet. Booking through Virgin as well we were given maps to find our way out of LA and to Mammouth, this had a few things on for the children to look our for on the journey. You don?t pass may people while driving through the desert and every so often there a small cafes where you can stop to get food and drink and get stared at by the local inhabitants!
Up into the mountains the roads were very clear, good job as there was about 2 meters of snow on either side!

There are lots of great places to eat out at in the centre and Nick & Willies do great breakfasts!!! The portions are massive out here, one person with us ordered BBQ Chicken and chips and it came as a whole chicken covered in BBQ sauce with his chips on a separate plate. And a pasta place we went to we were all really full after just a main course, but we decided to have Blueberry pie to share for desert as we though we couldn?t manage one each. Well, all four of us couldn?t eat this one pie ? it was huge, took us 10minutes just to eat the ice cream off the top before we got to the pie! You cannot starve o
ut here.
From the centre of Mammouth it is a few minutes drive up to the slopes or there is a frequent shuttle bus service where you just yell when you want to get off.
The pistes stretch out over an absolutely huge area and there are a vast number of runs for people of all abilities. Although we found the beginners slopes to get very crowded around lunch time, but as soon as you have made a lift ride or two away they become deserted, so best not ski on your own!

The skiing in Mammouth is like a dream, it is like the clear sky, deep power pictures that you see in magazines. Down on the lower slopes all the trails are tree lined, which you can go though if you are mad! Where as up on the higher slopes it is just bare mountain. There are quite a few mountain huts located around where you can stop of for lunch, drinks and to catch a few rays!

The lift service is very orderly, there is no queue jumping or anyone irate and if you should happen to actually find a queue then you will not have to wait long.

The highest run is from 11.750 feet, one way down from here is off a 2 metre cornice then down a very steep slope where the first turn is always the worst. Or you can go down the gentle meandering way, however we found this to get very icy later on in the day after all the new snow had been blown off to leave bar ice!

When it snows here, it really snows over 2 days we had about 3 metres of snow and this closed half the mountain due to avalanches and the piste bashers not managing to get to some of the further out slopes.

If you should get bored of Mammoth or just fancy a change there is also June Mountain a short drive away, which your lift pass for Mammouth covers you for. Although the day we went it started snowing heavily and we have to be convoyed in small numbers back along the road with a snowplough in front clearing the road for each set of cars as there was so much snow coming down!

Assistants in the h
ire shops are more than helpful making sure that you are 100% happy with your hire equipment before to take it away.

There are lots of shops to look around selling all sorts of things to take home with you or treat yourself to while you are out there.
If you don?t want to ski everyday there are other things going on like snow shoeing up to the lakes, or snowmobiling or there is also the local swimming pool and cinema.

Two things to watch?
They don?t appear to have gritters over there and so the roads are like ice skating rinks literally, so the vehicles have chains on all the time.
And it is always a good idea to brush the metre of snow off the roof of your jeep before you accidentally brake hard or else you end up creating a new mini roundabout!!!

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