It started early and rarely let up. California’s Mammoth Mountain, located just east of the Sierra Nevada crest, received eleven inches of snow at the beginning of November 2022. Less than a week later, forty-nine inches fell. Four feet fell in the first four days of December and another twenty-nine inches over December 11 and 12. In a blink, the entire mountain was open on top of a six- to eight-foot snowpack. It is appropriate to say “boom.” Boom!
Big dumps, even big winters, are common in Mammoth, which like all of California is known for the variability of its precipitation. But the winter of 2022-23 was next level. For photographer Christian Pondella, who’s lived full time in Mammoth since 1993, and other residents, it was a bounty that cut both ways.
12-year-old Renzo Singer on Deep Friday, February 24, 2023, the fattest, lightest storm day of the season “If truth be told and you asked locals about the winter of 2023, their most vivid memories, aside
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