Skating Season!

November 22, 2005

It is the shortest of Mammoth's sports seasons, and some years it doesn't happen at all.

It is the ice skating season—the season in late fall when the lakes freeze but snow has not accumulated on them.

It's happening now. Ice is all over the place from about 9,000 feet up, although it's not thick enough to skate on yet. I was up at Ellery Lake and Tioga Lake on the Yosemite road this afternoon, and ice already was forming in large chucks.

Conditions have to be just right for the skating season around here. The freeze optimally happens in the absence of wind, so the ice isn't bumpy. The freeze should be sudden, and last at least several nights.

The result is thick, smooth ice.

The best lake for skating? It depends on how hard you want to work to get there.

Aficionados are particularly fond of Ruby Lake, one mile up the Mono Pass Trail from Little Lakes Valley, south of Mammoth in the Rock Creek drainage. Ruby Lake lies at the bottom of a north-facing slope (Lookout Peak). It is remote and, at 11,040 feet, is about as high as a skater could want to be.

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