TIPS FOR SKIING

Websites:
MammothMountain.com.

Ski Lockers
The best deal is to get a locker at Canyon Lodge for your ski stuff. That way you can leave it there and not have to carry it back to the condo every night. Lockers are located on the bottom and second floors. You should be able to get a locker, especially if you arrive on a weekday - but get one as soon as you can before the weekend. If they run out you can also check skis and things with the basket service on the main floor, next to where they sell lift tickets. Sure, you can carry your skis back and forth but it is a seven minute walk; bad in ski boots.

For holiday weekends - which get very busy - if we arrive at night, we get up early to get to Canyon Lodge by 7AM to get a locker. Then go back and go back to bed. (This past Presidents Day we got one of the last lockers at 7AM Friday morning.)

Of course you can also drive up and park at Canyon Lodge. This is fine except that most weekends the parking stretches down to us at Mountainback and beyond. So if you do this on a weekday, don't expect to find a spot on a busy weekend. You can always drop someone off at Canyon Lodge, take the car back to Mountainback, and then walk back to the lodge.

Each locker can hold two sets of equipment including boots, but it gets tight. The lockers use tokens which cost $2.00 each, each time you lock the locker. You can leave things longer than 24 hours but we have heard that they will empty the lockers after a week or so.

Ski Tickets - see: Mammoth Mountain website
We have any season passes but they have our photos on them and cannot be shared. If we have any discount cards, we put them on the kitchen counter or along with magazines on the side table where the 'blaster' stereo is. The trouble with them is that they have blackout periods of popular dates plus you have to purchase them three days before you plan to use them. Other than that they work for 5 persons for up to 5 days. Mammoth offers discounts for multiple days and weeks as well as for children and seniors. There's also the usual half-day rate that begins at noon or 1PM.

Ski Rentals - see: Mammoth Mountain website
Canyon Lodge rents skis. There are two rental shops: the large regular rental shop, located on the main floor next to the ski store, and the smaller Demo Ski rental shop, located on the second floor.

Ski Repair Shop
is located on the second floor, right of the staris, behind the Demo Ski shop.

Ski Shop
is located on the main floor with rentals, tickets, and baskets.

MAMMOTH SKI LODGES, listed from west to east

  • The Main Lodge was the original lodge built at the end of Minaret Road back in the fifties by Dave McCoy and company. It has been expanded numerous times. It, too, has lockers, lift tickets, information, cafeteria, bar, outside dining, ski shop, repair, and rentals, basket check, ski school, ski patrol, shuttle, and the gondola to mid-mountain McCoy Station and on up to the Cornice runs. Canyon Lodge seems larger, although it may not really be. The Mammoth Mountain Inn was added in the sixties. The Gondola up to McCoy Station and the Cornice ski runs begins here. Numerous Chair lifts take off from here including beginner lifts and boarder lifts. The main one is Chair One, a high-speed quad that takes you up to McCoy Station.
  • Outpost is really the western-most but it is not really a lodge; its a sun deck with fast food and restrooms. You get to it via the Cornice or Chair 12.
  • McCoy Station, or Mid-Chalet, is located half-way up the mountain from the Main Lodge. It has a large cafeteria and a large indoor-outdoor bar as well as an elegant restaurant called Parallax. There is also a small ski shop and restrooms. The Gondolas stop here on the way up to the Cornice runs.
  • Panorama Lookout is at the top of the mountain, the Cornice, inside the gondola station. As of summer 2007 it was almost serving light lunch and snacks at window tables. Its very nice with great panoramas and it includes a small museum exhibit space about the Sierras.
  • The Mill - along Minaret Rd.on the way to Main Lodge, is at the base of chairs 2, 10, and 21. Its a great place for lunch or bar but has no lockers or other facilities. There may or may not be kiosks for buying lift tickets.
  • Chair 4, South Park - no lodge but an alternative location to begin skiing, with Parking on Minaret Road and and sometimes sells lift tickets on busy days. Restrooms.
  • Canyon Lodge is a 7 minute walk from Mountainback 72. It has Chairs 16, 8, 17, and 7. Beginner slopes and Intermediate. Hi-speed Quad Chair 16 takes you up to the middle of the mountain (one of several middles). Chair 8 is a quick way over to Eagle. Lockers, lift tickets, information, cafeteria, bar, outside dining, ski shop, repair, and rentals, basket check, ski school, day care/children activities, ski patrol, shuttle, and the gondola to the new Village.
  • Eagle Lodge is the newest lodge and the closest to town. It is still in a temporary inflatible building but it has good facilities, as the others do. Plans are to build a permanent lodge and village. There is only one chair, Eagle (15) but it is a high-speed six-person. Limited small 1 cu.ft. lockers for small things, lift tickets, information, waiter restaurant, bar, outside dining, ski shop, repair, and rentals, ski school, shuttle. This side of the mountain gets the sun first in the morning and most of its runs orient east-west so that it maintains the sun throughout the day. Many consider it the ideal place to begin the day as the snow softens here first - but then it may also be the first to turn slushy in warm afternoons or icy as the sun goes down. This side of the mountain has wonderful lower slopes for beginners and intermediate. Its upper slopes are quite challenging and are being expanded with the opening of six-person high-speed chair 9, Cloud Nine Express. The main Eagle run crosses over Lake Mary Rd.