Taos, Snowbowl, Vegas ??!!!???

[Johnny Law]

Day 1 ---- Taos

I don't remember when I first heard about Taos but it has always held a shangri-la like reputation so when I was going to roughly be in the area it was saddle up buckaroo.

I found a cool place to stay that is basically an rv park where they've setup 60's airstreams and such, update the interior kinda plus it has next level views. I highly recommend it if you're in the area and dig that kinda thing. 

I woke up early and hit up Leonels for tamales, NM knows what's good but I thought they were delicious and was in the lot by 815. There were negative people around and I was getting all the good omens. The moon could just be seen right over Al's, not a cloud in the sky and two gigantic Crows were dicking around by the ski racks.

It was in the 20s last night so shit was firm to start but the groomers had super nice grip and I ran the sunny blues off lifts 4 and 8. Shakalaka or whatever was just perfect set it and forget it super high speed with barely another soul on the trails. 

Around 10 or so I wanted to up the wager and went up Kachina. I had my eyes set on k3 but stayed up on the ridge too long and  ended up in cabin chute which held surprisingly soft super nice steep jump turns with a slush bump apron. I ran main st which was better bumps but not as interesting and then k3 which held super nice buttery bumps. 

NM had told me about a secret dope bathroom and with the tamales in the chamber I checked it out and followed some patrolers into Hondos for lunch.  I had the green chili burger and mussels both were dope and a much needed respite after 12k shenanigans.

After lunch I tried to find some lines on west basin I had seen from lift 8. Like an old man getting into the bathtub kinda speed I walked and traversed my way out there twice, both times not to end up where I wanted but took two nice ramps of taters on a plate as consulation. I don't know what the names are, it may be called thunderbird but it's tight entrance called to me from the lift but I couldn't find it.  

By now my legs where telling me to fuck off hard just about every 10 turns so I ran Hunziker which was absolutely perfect spring super fast falling down the hill carving. I thought it appropriate to end the day on Al's and by the end it was a bit rough but you gotta pour one out for your homies. 

I cannot say enough good things about today,  some places you ski and it's like a religious experience. Alta/Bird, JH, etc, you'll remember the way the turns made you feel your whole life. In my opinion Taos absolutely has to be on that list. Better groomers than DV no lie, I ran so many I don't know the name of with perfect snow almost alone and the steeps absolutely kick your ass.

Sitting up top Kachina, behind you massive faces and ramps absolutely sparkling packed full of snow, looking out you can see as far as CO and it's like your on the top of the world. I could have sat there forever, I was fucking Ghandi on Valium. 

 

[RidgeRacer]

Hell yeah. looks incredible. recent snowfall appears to have made things real nice for you guys. Upper bowl is open at SB and another round on snow is supposed to hit on Friday. Hopefully you timed it perfectly. Enjoy!

Edited April 4 by RidgeRacer

[NMSKI]

La Luna Mystica!  I’ve always wanted to stay in one of those trailers!  Did they reopen the brewery next door?  It was closed for a while after Covid.  
 

Awesome report, so glad you had a great time!

[Johnny Law]

On 4/4/2024 at 3:18 AM, RidgeRacer said:

Hell yeah. looks incredible. recent snowfall appears to have made things real nice for you guys. Upper bowl is open at SB and another round on snow is supposed to hit on Friday. Hopefully you timed it perfectly. Enjoy!

I got up there today super good groomers but no upper mtn though I might have been late. 

On 4/4/2024 at 3:21 AM, NMSKI said:

La Luna Mystica!  I’ve always wanted to stay in one of those trailers!  Did they reopen the brewery next door?  It was closed for a while after Covid.  
 

Awesome report, so glad you had a great time!

It was a super cool spot and apparently the air port is there but I never heard it.  The brewery is open again Thurs to Sat and they built some kind of stage thing for music and what not. I got the best nap with the door open and a super view out of the door. 

Day 2 - Snowbowl

I had to rally straight from the bowl to the party so sorry for the delay but I got moderate wastey pants in the craziest house I've ever seen. 

I left Taos at 4am to get to the bowl around 11, mostly because I planned this trip totally ass backwards but I was stoked to ride as I've heard so much about it.

First thing I went for the bowl as you can see it from the lot and it calls to come ride.  Sadly it was closed, not sure if I was too late but it looked like super sweet terrain and a reason to come back. 

The promenance of the hill is redic and the views are high class particularly for its size. I went white lightening or whatever the one is off the catwalk first about a half a dozen times. The sun side was super soft perfect but the shade was super slick which made for a dope challenge. 

Groomers were most excellent, super soft with relatively low crowds. I ran Sundance to logjam like 1000 times, its just a perfect hoot of a trail to put the hammer down. I ran super groomer after super groomer in the sun with mostly no crowds. 

Two days in a row of superb skiing, I'm on to some other stuff for a few days but I want to keep this train going. The question is back to taos or over to mammoth and June ? Thoughts? 

 

 

[RidgeRacer]

Sucks about upper bowl being closed for you. Been up there once and it was memorable for sure. Hoping you got to sample some of the trees off of upper catwalk and off of the Gondi line. And yeah those high speed runs in lower bowl, log jam are worth the price of admission (upper and lower ridge too). Glad you had a great day. Pass renewed for next year so hit me up if you ever do wanna go back for upper bowl.

Edited April 6 by RidgeRacer

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Sweet report JLaw, you’re such a road warrior where I’m wondering if it’s worth driving to montgomeryville for a corned beef Sando…have fun in Vegas.  

[Johnny Law]

On 4/6/2024 at 4:47 AM, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Sweet report JLaw, you’re such a road warrior where I’m wondering if it’s worth driving to montgomeryville for a corned beef Sando…have fun in Vegas.  

Sometimes I don't want to go to the store which is less than 4 actual minutes down the road but then today I did 600 miles and since last Friday something like 3k. 

I got up as early as I could muster after 3 days of maximum shenanigans, its a bachelor party so to the grave but I highly recommend the boulders golf course and cake on the strip in Scottsdale. You make your own fun but some of the rowdiest shit in my life.  

I'm just getting to Mammoth, I scored a sweet ski in/out condo but I'm posting because my path took me about 30mins from death valley and I almost didn't make the detour. I've been lucky enough to go alot of places and drive alot of cool drives but Holy fucking shit death valley was absolutely stunning. 

Massive vistas in an almost alien landscape it was maybe the best drive I've ever been on.  If your nearby don't miss it, it's as close as you can get to being on mars and except for the main area I saw almost no one for 50 miles. 

[toast21602]

11 hours ago, Johnny Law said:

Sometimes I don't want to go to the store which is less than 4 actual minutes down the road but then today I did 600 miles and since last Friday something like 3k. 

I got up as early as I could muster after 3 days of maximum shenanigans, its a bachelor party so to the grave but I highly recommend the boulders golf course and cake on the strip in Scottsdale. You make your own fun but some of the rowdiest shit in my life.  

I'm just getting to Mammoth, I scored a sweet ski in/out condo but I'm posting because my path took me about 30mins from death valley and I almost didn't make the detour. I've been lucky enough to go alot of places and drive alot of cool drives but Holy fucking shit death valley was absolutely stunning. 

Massive vistas in an almost alien landscape it was maybe the best drive I've ever been on.  If your nearby don't miss it, it's as close as you can get to being on mars and except for the main area I saw almost no one for 50 miles. 

Death Valley is the best detour I've made on a trip. Badwater Basin is pretty cool being so far below sea level. Really underrated park. Glad your car took you there!

[Johnny Law]

Day 3 - Mammoth 

About a half inch of surprise snow overnight and lifts that spin at 830 and I was up and out early. 

Cold and up top it was hyper windy but super sun kept it from being uncomfortable.

Mammoth is obviously gigantic with almost 30 lifts and 200 trails, like Sunday river it's mostly pods of 2k vert or so. As a big fan of weird lifts they have some great ones,  3 older fix grips, a two part gondy that you load in the lodge like a train station and my favorite chair 23, where it's so windy they built a hut to off load with directional tunnels depending on how you wish to unload. 

Where taos jams more steep on steep, Mammoth rolls over though it does have endless steeps and tech skiing. Personally I think CA skiing absolutely murders in the terrain, particularly playground terrain that is super playful tech but not actively trying to kill you at any moment and Mammoth has endless amounts of that.

I went up 9 first to get the bit o fresh in the dragons back zone 2 which was good until you hit the wind scour and then it got spicy af. The groomers were perfection with low crowds and superb views. 

The gondy to the summit was on wind hold but I noticed they groomed a run down cornice bowl that looked like Kitzbuel. Chair 23 was absolutely rocking, the wind up top was blue like but I wanted to ski dropout chutes which are kinda famous that held decent chalky turns and the cornice groomer to st Anton. It was one of the best groomed runs ever,  the steepness was perfect and it's the fastest I've gone on skis in forever.  It was so good I ran it three times in a row at hyper speed

Chair after chair, run after run of just perfect sunny groomers. Lower mtn I foolishly tried off trail and found deadly punch through crust that tried to send me to the shadow realm but everything else was mint and my God the scale of the place. You could ski here for a month and not get all the steeps lines. 

Reds Lake run, solitude, white bark bowl there were so many runs where you can absolutely fly but my favorite run in the whole place was rooster tail to dry creek. It was a steepish bowl of chalk to a choke with a monster rock wall backdrop. The line was perfect chocolate chip and once charted you could air between and over and come out the other side 1000% club super sex.  

The sheer amount of terrain and the amount of fun and creativity you can have is absurd. I don't know what it is but CA kills fun flowy super fast terrain and I did my best to ski as many and as much of the place as possible but I just scratched the surface. I don't think PASR does alot of golden state skiing but Mammoth is up there with the super resorts like Vail, Snowmass, etc etc where the scale alone is impressive. 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Any updates?  I saw this beauty in my way to work. 

[Johnny Law]

Sorry after I left june I went Vegas, Phoenix, Newark, its like I'm on the run from the mob and need some time to cloister and chill.

Day 4  - June

June is the sister hill to Mammoth where the later is gigantic and mostly newish June is smaller and old. Mammoth has some bro brah too where June is hyper chill. 

I rolled up a little before 8 mad at myself for not getting out of bed. June is two blue mtns stacked on top of eachother. The lower is all ungroomed blacks that with the freeze thaw are not skiable until the afternoon and are served by a awesome ancient double chair with a custom Jerry rigged safety bar. Because of this nobody skis the bottom mountain so I didn't think it strange I saw absolutely no one out.  

When I reach mid mtn, all the lifts are running, workers are out but I see no other customers. Fuck man did I get on the lift early or something ? J6 is running so I get on but even from the lift I can't see anyone, not a single other person. Wtf is going on where is everyone ??? 

I go Silverado a long blue that looks down on lake June which is absolutely perfect cord top to bottom and I still don't see anyone even down at the mid base.

I take another faster even more perfect groomer down Bodie and I almost can't believe that I have still yet to see another single customer on the trails, lifts, base area like did I take peyote last night wtf is going on ?   It's not until my 4th run I see another person coming up the lift and I'm 1000% serious I think I was the only one there for like the first half hour. 

Now it's starting to click no one is home and I can do whatever the fuck I want and j7 just opened. J7 hosts the good shit in the upper mtn and they've groomed a wicked steep groomer into deer bowl. All the way up I can see not a single person and decide  I'm going to set the afterburner to 1000. From the top of the lift I do 5 massive arcs down the hill at absolutely maximum speed, I lied when I said Mammoth is fast I'm doing 10mph faster as a 1000 vert goes by in seconds. Matterhorn and Schatzi is exactly the same how fucking fast can you go taking up the entire trail jumping off anything because I'm still skiing alone. 

I've skied like 1000+ days at alot of hills and normally when I say it's empty it's relative to a normal day but I've never seen something like this, ever and not even close. I'm farming cord as I'm crossing only my tracks and while I can now see two groups out from the lift there's maybe 10 people out total on the entire upper mtn.

All morning run after run after run I had the whole trail to myself,  free to paint without rules I went ape just doing full width full speed arcs under perfect blue skies and sun, Sierra's hulking steep faces lurking in the background, June lake below it was absolutely perfect. It wasn't t-ride/Silverton or other trips where it snowed everyday but top 50 day ever skiing for sure. 

People did show up but I'd say at max maybe 200 people at most around 1pm. I rode the lift with someone only twice and only because I wanted to talk to this dude that ripped about where the fuck everyone was. Apparently it's almost always low crowds so Iow they don't have enough loot to replace j1 which while super cool is also super slow.

After lunch I alternated between empty groomers and working lines up on the upper face.  It's a moderate pitch of trees and rocks and while fun the snow never really got right off trail. The groomers though continued to deliver empty perfection. 

It was a super cool day and one of my favorite groomer days ever. I have written alot of words but if you read anything GO TO JUNE MTN !! 

 

PS. In keeping with tradition I saw these, fruit booting with snow board boots interesting. 

[RidgeRacer]

What a trip dude. Skiing at 4 different mountains in 3 different states and, oh by the way, throw in Death Valley and Las Vegas while your at it. That's how you see / ski the west. WTGAI!!

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice reports..JLaw was it just you and your brother skiing or some solo skiing? 

[Johnny Law]

3 hours ago, RidgeRacer said:

What a trip dude. Skiing at 4 different mountains in 3 different states and, oh by the way, throw in Death Valley and Las Vegas while your at it. That's how you see / ski the west. WTGAI!!

Thanks for the kind words and beta on snowbowl, I really like the exploration part of skiing and seeing new hills or places I don't remember. This country is super safe and has endless incredible shit so might as well see it. Skiing i feel like why the hell do I want to know where I am and where I'm going all the time? Snowbowl was super surprising and with the upper bowl is a big sleeper. 

Idaho/Montucky are up for next season but I keep saying that about revelstoke and then something happens so who knows. 

2 hours ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Nice reports..JLaw was it just you and your brother skiing or some solo skiing? 

Just me for the skiing, my brother citing extreme business could only make the bachelor party. Skiing at June was the only time it was a bit weird, like summer school or something where it felt odd no one was there but I make friends fast.

A Japanese lady at Mammoth was my favorite, I think she was literally insane. She was lost at cloud 9 lift and absolutely interrogating the lifties about getting to eagle and I made the mistake of saying I could take her. 10 mins later she's still talking to me about her crystals and shakras and how the eclipse is the start of a new celestial era and all that jazz. 

[theprogram4]

Jlaw takes the most badass ski trips, cause he not only hits all different places, but turns them into a road trip seeing different parts of the country.  If I ever win the lottery (not possible as I don’t play) it would be cool to just drive all over the western US in the winter, following the snow

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

5 hours ago, theprogram4 said:

Jlaw takes the most badass ski trips, cause he not only hits all different places, but turns them into a road trip seeing different parts of the country.  If I ever win the lottery (not possible as I don’t play) it would be cool to just drive all over the western US in the winter, following the snow

I agree I thought by this age I’d be doing stuff like that but I’m bad at saving money and I really can’t take off much time from work right now it’s all gas no brakes…

[Johnny Law]

16 hours ago, GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

I agree I thought by this age I’d be doing stuff like that but I’m bad at saving money and I really can’t take off much time from work right now it’s all gas no brakes…

You did the same in CO for a bunch of years and being busy at work is a good problem to have 

[RidgeRacer]

25 inches over the last 2 days at the bowl

[momskeeztoo]

I just saw that. Why am I here? 

[RidgeRacer]

1 hour ago, momskeeztoo said:

I just saw that. Why am I here? 

I’ll be out there next weekend too. They’ll be open but there’s no way I can ski  😑 I’m actually going to drive right past snowbowl road. That’s gonna be rough.

Edited Saturday at 06:10 PM by RidgeRacer