It's the 2nd season of the Cali4nia pass but the first year Mammoth has been running the joint. There have been some definite problems at SS. No one knew how to use the buddy pass; no one knew how much of a discount for food if any; my Cali4nia pass had my picture but the id number of a teenage boy; all the parking in the lot is now VIP (weekends anyway) and everyone else has to park on the street. They just are not keeping up with customer service period. SS always had awesome customer service. The folks who work there are still terrific. They just lack training and management seems non-existent.I find it curious that their website is out of date. It's the first season of the Cali4nia pass.
SS has been less than truthful/forthcoming regarding the VIP parking. Despite what they told me, it would seem that on a busy day, the size of the paid parking area expands to encompass the whole parking lot.12/31 -
We left home around 7am, and had to park down in the lot off the main road and take the cattle car shuttle up to the ski area. Alternative was to pay $20 for V.I.P. parking in the formerly free lot. Edit: I read what @mustski wrote about parking, but to be honest it wasn't clear what rows were free. It was a zoo in the parking area on our arrival and on departing.
Happy New Year!
Off piste at SS requires " " around the words! They allow Off Chute & Dicky's to bump up, mainly because they are too hard (former) or too short (latter) to groom. There is some "off piste" between runs, but it is really just a hoppity skippity through the woods for 5 seconds. Bear does have some decent tree skiing in the canyons, and I heard it was skiing very well right after the last big dump. I would guess that it is pretty skied out and crusty by now. Truthfully, as far as local skiing goes, don't wait for "off piste" skiing.Hi @VickiK and @mustski ! We've been to SS a couple of times but never when there's enough coverage to go off piste. We had fun on the groomers but want to wait to go back until there's enough snow for the fun looking off-piste terrain. Possibly weekend after next... How's the snow coverage looking?