After a historic amount of snowfall, a popular California resort is ending its second-longest ski season. The ski lifts at Mammoth Mountain, in the eastern Sierra Nevadas, have been open since early November and, up until 5 August, remained available well into summer.
While it is not unusual for people to powder-surf on the Fourth of July at the resort, the sheer amount of snow the mountain saw made this season exceptional and one of the longest in the resort’s 70-year history, according to NPR.
“This is a completely unique circumstance,” said Tim LeRoy, a spokesperson for Mammoth Mountain. “It’s a record by virtue of the fact that it’s the most [snow] we’ve gotten.”
The end of the 2022/2023 season marks the last remnants of an unusually wet and cold winter and early spring for the state. An unprecedented 700in of snow fell on the main parts of Mammoth over the past nine months and 900in fell on the summit, according to the resort’s website.
The resort’s extended season came amid a brutal summer for the the US west. Much of the south-west endured a heat dome that brought weeks of extreme heat, including record highs in Phoenix.
Although this season made for a memorable experience for skiers and snowboarders, it also meant early mornings of hard labor for Mammoth staff. Workers had to dig parking lots and ski lift infrastructure from beneath hard ice and thick blankets of snow, shuttle drivers had to navigate the terrain, and other staff worked to mitigate avalanches and make sure the routes people took down the mountain were safe and clearly marked.
“That amount of snow – what’s required to keep a town running and how difficult simple tasks can be – is not to be underestimated.” LeRoy added. “From a community perspective it’s a lot.”
California’s exceptionally snowy winter hit the mountain communities across the Sierra hard, burying towns in snow and collapsing roofs from Mammoth to Lake Tahoe.
In late February, Highway 395, the road that leads people into Mammoth Mountain, was hit hard by a series of avalanches and was closed by the California highway patrol. It was reopened days later, LeRoy said.
This article was amended on 10 August 2023 to clarify that Highway 395 reopened days later, not months as previously stated.
