June Mountain is special because it gives us access to some of the best backcountry skiing in the USA and it drives the local community’s economy. June Mountain closed last winter for financial reasons. June will reopen in 2013/14 and this is fantastic news for skiers and riders.
June Mountain is a legend that has taken a fall and hopes to get back up. Powder Magazine tells why June’s a legend, why it fell, and how it will get back up:
“June Lake’s fate did not come about overnight. As Mammoth built up and out with a village and new chairlifts just 20 miles away, change never came to June Mountain. Ever since Mammoth bought it in 1986, June Mountain Ski Area has operated at a loss. Mammoth treated it as overflow on busy holidays, and says the town of June Lake needs more hotel rooms before it will make money. Conversely, June Lake says Mammoth neglected the ski area and never invested in its infrastructure or marketing, which in turn led to June Mountain’s demise. Business was never sustainable at June Mountain, and the notion of closing the ski area down had been simmering for years. Former Mono County Supervisor Vikki Bauer says she saw it coming.
“I said, ‘June Mountain cannot survive without more of a bed base. They will close June Mountain down,’” says Bauer. “No one wanted to believe me.” “ – Julie Brown/Powder Magazine
Please read the Julie Brown’s great article:
The Future of June Mountain: what happens when you take the ski area out of the ski town
One thing the article ignores: the bottom third of June gets less than half the snow of the base of Mammoth.
All this talk about June, what’s going on at squaw?!
I’ve skied there.
Great scenery but the J1 lift from the base is awful slow.
When you pull into June, it’s hard to believe there’s a ski resort there. It’s in the middle of nowhere. The article is right. They’ll have to blow up June, make it independent before it’ll work financially
Great article, great mountain