It hasn’t snowed in months in California’s Eastern Sierra, and yet vibes were extremely high Saturday morning in line at Mammoth Mountain’s Broadway Express lift. At 8:30 am sharp, Mammoth became the first ski resort in California to open its proverbial gates as some waited hours (and in some cases even camped in line overnight) to be among the first chairs up once the lift began spinning.
Only a handful of runs were open and all on manmade snow, but that didn’t stop hundreds from all over the state from turning up to welcome the winter season and indulging in a free beer to toast to the 2019/2020 winter.
Opening early and closing late is very much Mammoth’s thing. Earlier this year, after a series of March and February storms dropped an ungodly amount of snow on much of the Sierra, the resort extended operations all the way through July 28, making Mammoth the last resort in California to close for the season. Just 104 days later, here we are again.
Now, we pray for snow.
Scroll right for some scenes from the first day on the mountain at Mammoth.
