Starting off with a Road Trip
After the usual family festivities back East, I started my year in San Diego where I had been surfing before the holidays. The good news: I had a ski trip planned with some friends the following weekend. The bad news: It was in British Columbia.
Well - I had a whole week, so why not do some skiing?
After the obligatory stops at the Eastern Sierra Visitor Center (bathrooms, water, cool info about Death Valley) and Schat’s Bakery Bakkerÿ (Bacon Asiago Cheese Bread and a Pullaway) I made it to Mammoth in time for an afternoon of skiing. It was… fine - I still haven’t had a true Mammoth powder day, even managing to pick the one week in the record-breaking 2023 season where it didn’t snow at all. I’ll get it some day🤞
Hope you weren’t expecting good photos from this blog… I’d say I’m working on it, but really I just take a bunch and hope some of them turn out okay.
I considered a stop in Tahoe the following day, but given that I was back on the road by 4:00pm it seemed inefficient to drive only 3 more hours and post up for the night. I still haven’t skiied any Tahoe resorts either - on the list for 2026 I guess. I spent Monday driving and working (believe it or not I do have a day job), placing myself in the Mt. Bachelor Sno-Park Monday night.
While I maintain my snobbishness about Utah Powder, I’m a huge fan of the PNW’s accessibility for skiing out of a van. In Salt Lake you’re sleeping in some parking lot in the valley and in Mammoth you’re hoping there’s a plowed spot on the scenic loop or trying to sneak a spot in town. Meanwhile Oregon and Washington seem to have a public Sno-Park within 10 minutes of most of their resorts, well-plowed, with bathrooms, and permits are under $50 for the season.
Mount Bachelor was super cool in terms of layout - my first time skiing a volcano, and being able to ski off the summit in any direction was incredible.
The snow itself was unfortunately once again sub-optimal. It was super interesting to experience the mountain’s temperature gradient - rock hard at the top and slushy at the bottom - but it made for a “good snow zone” of what felt like only a few hundred feet in the middle. I also really put my ski edges to the test recovering from a slip in an icy chute - one of my more memorable close calls of the season.
From there it was a straightforward drive to meet my friends in Seattle, where I arrived Wednesday night (maybe I should have thrown in that Tahoe stop?). 1500 miles and two ski resorts in 4 days - not a bad start to the year!