In The Middle Of It All, Central California Resorts Keep Pace With Upgrades
Keeping up with the Jones' are the bywords for ski and snowboard resorts in the West, so it's no surprise that central Sierra ski and snowboard mountains kept busy in the off-season.
Starting with the largest, Mammoth Mountain management hopes a new Canyon Express high-speed six-pack will ease wait times at a prime access point. Replacing a 39-year-old quad, uphill speed will be cut by more than a minute.
Also new at California's highest resort (11,053-ft summit) are upgrades at the tubing park and snowmaking, plus evidence of a future Day Lodge.
Neighbor June Mountain opens this season with a couple of "adventure zones": Enchanted Forest in the trees under J2 chair, and Haunted Forest off J6 chair in the trees below Rainbow Summit. A new cantina has popped up midway up to June Mountain Summit.
Over on the western side of the Sierra, China Peak doubled the capacity of the workhorse Canyon fixed-grip -- and concurrently upped all out-of-base capacity by 30%. New lift should untangle waiting times for getting onto the mountain.
The Fresno favorite also joins the Cali Pass and Powder Alliance this season, along with Mountain High, Dodge Ridge and Bear Valley.
Speaking of which, both Dodge Ridge and Bear Valley spent the off-season tweaking things rather than making headlines. Near Pinecrest above Modesto, Dodge Ridge put in a RFIC ticket-checking system and streamlined both rental and check-in operations. The lesson area got a second conveyor lift, and mid-mountain Wayfarer's remodel is done.
Up at Bear Valley, the addition of a pair of winch cats to the grooming fleet should smooth out some of the serious steeps in the Grizzly Bowl and Snow Valley black-rated runs.
And farther north at Sierra-at-Tahoe, the ski and snowboard mountain -- among California's oldest in its eighth decade -- is still recovering from the 2021 wildfire that roared right through the mountain slopes and trails. The trail map is new, because of how the fire thinned the trees, but mountain ops are slowly coming back to life. The road to the mountain has been repaved and parking lots improved.
