Mammoth Mountain soars to 11,053 feet above sea level in the Sierra Nevada mountain range near California’s eastern border. Renowned as California’s highest mountain resort, visitors to the bike park can begin their descent from almost the same elevation, dropping about 3,000ft to the main lodge.
With big mountains come big snowfall, something that Mammoth Mountain is no stranger to. With an average snowfall of around 400 inches, Mammoth has seen some beyond-average winters. The 2016-17 winter brought 617.5 inches of snow. 2010-11 saw 668.5 inches; the winter before that had a 557.9 inch snowfall.
But those seasons pale in comparison to the snowfall of the 2022-23 winter.
The 2022-23 winter brought the largest snowpack on record for Mammoth Mountain, with a staggering 715 inches of snow falling for the season. That’s nearly 60 feet of snowfall.
While those numbers seem staggering, the pictures really told the story of how much snow Mammoth got. Chair lifts, typically hanging stories above the mountain, were buried in the snow.
When the snow finally began to melt and the idea of the bike park opening was discussed, the Mammoth Mountain crew found the trails in shambles. All told, the 2023 Mammoth Bike Park season was basically non-existent.
However, tires are again finding the dirt on Mammoth as the resort pushed hard to prepare for the 2024 bike park season. Singletracks caught up with Gabe Taylor, Mammoth’s Marketing Manager, to chat about how they weathered the storm, rebuilt, and where the bike park is today.
A brutal winter
The snow kept coming during that 2022-23 winter season. Mammoth was already dealing with a tremendous snowpack, and late spring storms continued to add to the mess.
“There was so much snow, and it stuck around,” Taylor told us. “We were skiing comfortably until August 9 – I think that was the day that we closed.”
During a typical year, Mammoth begins to open trails in its bike park on Memorial Day weekend. Crews take several weeks to get all the trails up and running — usually by mid-summer. This gives Mammoth Bike Park riders access to all the trails for several more weeks until the park shuts down in mid-September.
With August 9th being the last ski day of the 2022-23 winter season, lifts at the bike park only ran for a few weeks before winter began knocking on Mammoth’s door once again. Crews scrambled to dig out from a brutal winter, only to find weeks’ worth of trail work beneath the snow.
“And what we found was, as the snow is melting, it crushed every wooden feature apart – like almost every single one,” Taylor said.
In a normal year, crews make minor repairs on trail features and deal with the inevitable erosion from the melt. Taylor told us that this type of preparation typically equals a handful of days to get trails rideable again. Last season, Mammoth trail crews were looking at weeks of work to open just a single trail and were wondering which to prioritize — and which they could reasonably repair.
Some trails were damaged beyond repair.
“We lost a trail last year [to] erosion,” Taylor told us. “DC 10. I don’t think it’s ever going to be able to open again.” The techy pro line was absolutely gutted from the massive snow melt. Taylor shared that despite losing DC 10, a new trail is in the works to the north.
Where to start?
An average season has Mammoth Bike Park systematically working on trails, plugging away to be ready for its Memorial Day opening. After the massive 2022-23 winter snowpack and the short window for the bike park’s season, prioritizing the right trails was essential.
“I kind of look at the key trails,” Taylor said. “I want to get Off the Top… I think that’s what really sets our bike park apart.” Off the Top is an intermediate trail, dropping over 1,500 feet in five miles from the bike park’s highest point. Intermediate offerings tend to be lower on the mountain at most bike parks, and few are at nearly 11,000 feet. Off the Top provides a summit descent option for riders not yet ready to tackle the black or double-black trails often found at the top, quickly making it a Mammoth Mountain favorite.
After that, Taylor said he pushed hard to get as many pro lines open as possible, specifically focusing on ones near the gondola for quicker laps.
But it wasn’t just the more advanced riders Taylor and the crews at Mammoth focused on. They also wanted to attract families and more beginner riders who have been visiting the resort for years.
“The Discovery Zone is actually something that comes pretty quick for us,” Taylor said. “That’s all of the terrain serviced from the Discovery Chair — beginner and intermediate trails, pretty wide and smooth. [It’s a] two-and-a-half minute lift, so it’s an easy lap.”
Mammoth Bike Park up and running in 2024
And Mammoth Mountain made it work. They dug out from a brutal winter for a few bike park weeks in 2023, working around the clock to repair trails and wooden features, regardless of whether or not the trail opened that season.
This hard work, which is still ongoing, has absolutely paid off. Roughly half the amount of snow fell last winter, which was much closer to average for Mammoth and provided for a great ski season. Yet, on Memorial Day weekend 2024, despite some disappointment from skiers, Mammoth closed for the ski season and opened for mountain biking.
During the time of our conversation with Taylor, Mammoth had roughly 60% of their trails open. Taylor’s count put them at 30 of 52 trails open. They are still working on some favorites, like Chain Smoke, which, in Taylor’s opinion, is the best trail on the mountain.
However, trails like Chain Smoke and Pipeline will be ready soon. Taylor anticipates bike park patrons will have access to all trails on the mountain shortly. “I think in three weeks,” Taylor predicted, “we’ll have pretty much all of them.”
