Surfing and skiing in California: can you achieve both in the same weekend?

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It’s a shallow method to Mammoth Mountain from Los Angeles. For 5 lengthy hours, Highway 395 rises slowly throughout the Mojave Desert into the Sierra Nevada mountain vary. And then, all of a sudden, like a blizzard, California’s greatest ski resort hits you full-on.

I arrived on an early night in February – my mission to find whether or not it’s potential to both ski and surf over a lengthy winter weekend in California.

Mammoth Mountain, named after Mammoth Consolidated Mine, the firm that unearthed gold right here a century in the past, isn’t the closest ski resort to Los Angeles – these are in the San Gabriel Mountains, 90 minutes away. But with 175 pistes and 25 lifts throughout 3,500 acres of skiable terrain, it’s one in every of the largest, holding even the most formidable and athletic skiers occupied. Most winters it lures in greater than 1,000,000 guests.

The resort is usually blessed with big snowfalls, because of its excessive altitude and location at Mammoth Pass in the Sierra Nevada. Pacific storms usually funnel up by means of the deep gorge of the San Joaquin River earlier than dumping snow on the lava dome volcano of Mammoth Mountain, which rises to almost 3,400m at its summit. It’s commonplace for the slopes to stay skiable all spring and for a lot of the summer season. The 2022/2023 season was reported as the snowiest on file, with practically 23 metres of snow measured on the highest slopes.

Locals advised me proudly that, in the three days earlier than I arrived, three metres had fallen. Rising early on my first morning, I carved out traces by means of this thick snow, down pristinely groomed pistes. And with so many to select from, I had loads of area to myself, swooping quick in between groves of tall fir timber, mountain hemlock and western juniper. The queues at the bigger lifts had been busy, however at the smaller ones I not often waited for various minutes. This being the United States, it was in fact all very orderly.

Après-ski in Mammoth Lakes, the resort village, is pretty low-key. Beers are downed quick at Clocktower Cellar – what the Americans name a dive bar. There’s barely extra refined leisure at Lakanuki, a Hawaiian bar and restaurant, or at the Liberty Sports Bar & Grill, which levels stay music. If you’re decided to heat your innards with alcohol, Gomez, a Mexican restaurant and tequileria – supposedly “the highest tequileria in the world” – provides round a thousand completely different bottles of distilled agave. I sipped from only one.

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On my second day of skiing, I used to be extra adventurous, using the gondola to the very summit of Mammoth Mountain. Here, at 3,368m up, there’s a tiny museum known as the Eleven53 Interpretive Center, which explains the flora, fauna and geology of the area. There’s additionally a reasonably lacklustre café. The views throughout the spectacular Sierra Nevada vary greater than compensate.

Come the afternoon, I used to be on my means again to the Pacific coast. The journey this time took underneath an hour, as I rode in a small Dornier 328 jet from Mammoth Yosemite Airport to Hawthorne Municipal Airport, one in every of Los Angeles’s tinier airports. Not lengthy after sundown, I used to be at Huntington Beach, a seaside city simply south of Los Angeles. Nicknamed “Surf City”, its 9.5-mile-long seashore enjoys constant waves all 12 months spherical, aided additional by the lengthy pleasure pier that stretches out to sea. Banks of sand construct up round the pier’s pilings, growing the peak and consistency of the waves that roll in, attracting surfers alongside both sides, particularly in the mornings.

In the summer season, Huntington Beach hosts a number of competitions, together with the US Open of Surfing, which attracts in a whole bunch of rivals and much more spectators. It claims to be the largest browsing occasion on the planet. Stores throughout city commerce on the thirst for surf clothes and memorabilia. There’s a browsing corridor of fame, with the handprints and footprints of key names from browsing tradition, and a stroll of fame, with well-known names immortalised in sidewalk plaques, identical to in Hollywood. On Olive Avenue, there’s the International Surfing Museum, which was sadly closed for all of February.

The following morning I joined former professional surfer Rocky McKinnon, who provides rookies’ classes. “The hardest part of surfing is getting into the wetsuit,” he stated, earlier than operating by means of the fundamentals on the sand.

Before lengthy I used to be paddling out to sea over 4ft waves, the water temperature 14C. Beneath me was an unlimited board – about 10ft lengthy, far larger than a daily surfboard – which McKinnon assured me can be simpler to face up on.

Warning me to keep away from the pier pilings – “I’ve run into them, it’s not fun”, he stated – McKinnon held the rear of my board and, as quickly as a big sufficient wave approached, spun me spherical to face the shore. I paddled, he pushed, and inside a couple of seconds I used to be up on my ft.

Within even fewer seconds I used to be unbalanced and falling headfirst into the water. It continued like this for some time. It was nice enjoyable and exhausting, however secure to say that I received’t be bothering the organisers of the US Open anytime quickly.

Later I stood on the pier, the ideally suited vantage level from which to look at competent surfers. Up right here, 9 metres above the water, you see Huntington Beach life in all its multi-coloured glory. On the pier itself, joggers and walkers make their well past fishermen casting into the Pacific. I noticed one man beaming as he reeled in a small ray. A pelican was perched on the railings, scanning the sea for his breakfast, oblivious to passers-by taking selfies. Photographers snapped photographs of surfers. An aged Asian gentleman was doing his callisthenics. Down on the sand, an Alcoholics Anonymous assembly was going down, whereas gnarled outdated dudes pedalled previous on cruiser bicycles.

Then, as the morning warmed round me, I turned away from the seashore and appeared again inland. On the horizon had been the snow-capped peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. If I’d hailed an Uber, I may have been there in an hour and a half – a lot nearer than Mammoth Mountain. How fortunate the Southern Californians are to have both waves and snow on their doorstep.

Travel necessities

How to get there

American Airlines, British Airways, United, Virgin Atlantic and Delta all fly direct to LAX. Flight occasions are round 11.5 hours.

Where to remain

The Westin Monache Resort, Mammoth: A heated out of doors pool and two sizzling tubs supply mountain views. A ski valet subsequent to the gondola saves you from lugging your ski tools out and again each day.

Kimpton Shorebreak Huntington Beach Resort: There’s a 24-hour gymnasium, full with climbing wall, plus free use of cruiser bicycles, and a firepit the place you can roast s’mores. Each room has a file participant, and there’s a vinyl library at reception.

Dominic Bliss was a visitor of Visit California.