Fair enough, I actually agree with lots of what you said. Mammoth MIGHT be outside the top 10, although I think it has top 10 status, but it is still one of the best mountains in N.A. without considering park. What I really like about Mammoth is the quality of skiing on the day-to-day steeps. Doing Paranoids laps in good windbuff weeks after a storm is awesome. I did my ski bum years at Squaw, and I do prefer Squaw in an average year, but I prefer Mammoth in a bad year. I think the wind is both a blessing and a curse. It does turn some top pow days into windbuff days, but it can also make the steeps smooth weeks after a storm. Squaw some windbuff, but it has far more bumps than Mammoth. I think the day-to-day quality of the skiing at Mammoth is close to anywhere, and that is based on that windbuff.
I agree about the problems with the top though. It does suck that so often you don't get to ski blower off the top. And I would agree that there is not a ton of good tree skiing at Mammoth. But on an average day when I can ski windbuff in Hangman's then go to chair 23 and hit the Paranoids for more buff, well Mammoth is tough to beat. Some days I will just keep doing that loop. I only ski 40 days a year now, and if I had the choice to ski Squaw or Mammoth I prefer Squaw, but I would probably rather ski Mammoth than anywhere in Colorado, and Mammoth is much more of a sure thing than Squaw.
