Book your Mammoth Mountain ski accommodation direct with owners chalet apartment or hotel.

Mammoth Lakes, a small year-round resort town four miles from the ski slopes, is the main accommodation centre. It sprawls widely - mainly along the extraordinarily wide road (called Main Street) leading towards the ski slopes, and along one or two major side-roads. Hotels, bars, restaurants and little shopping centres with well-stocked ski shops line the roadside. Mammoth may be short on ski-resort ambience, but its setting among trees and its not unattractive buildings give a pleasant enough appearance. Even the ubiquitous MacDonald's has been tastefully designed. The 'village' is usually under a blanket of snow, which also helps. There is accommodation at the main base area of the skiing - the Mammoth Mountain Inn complex. And along the road up to the slopes lie several hotels and condos. Shuttle-buses serve four colour-coded routes, but a car is useful, especially for getting to June Mountain for a change of skiing scenery. The five- or six-hour drive up from Los Angeles, along a very good road, is spectacular. You pass through the San Bernardino mountains and Mojave Desert before reaching the Sierra Nevada range, of which Mammoth is part. Alternatively you can fly into Mammoth's own airport. Although Mammoth is one of America's largest ski areas, the resort's claim to have 150 trails should not be taken too seriously. The slightest variant of a run is given a separate name and number. Go to the right of a few trees and you're on trail 34, go to the left and it's trail 35.

• One of North America's biggest and best ski areas
• Can get a lot of snow - and there's extensive snowmaking
• Very extensive steep bowls at the top of the lift system
• Plenty of easy/intermediate cruising runs lower down, in the trees
• Good children's facilities
• Extensive, well kept, snow sure cross-country trails
• Amazingly cheap package holidays

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