The original Blue Ridge single chair was located where #6 Exhibition is today. I read where the old single was built about 1947. There was a warming hut about 100′ away. A Blue Ridge double went from the present base to a small knoll just N from the bottom of today’s Wyatt Run. That double was likely in place during the 1950s – it was ssllooww! The #9 Competition at Mt. High East [previously Holiday Hill] was a single chair when I began skiing Holiday Hill in 1965. Mt. High North [previously Table Mt., then Ski Sunrise in 73/74] had 3 Poma platter-pull lifts from the mid-1950s. My Dad was a classmate of the 2d owner Howard More in the 1930s, and Dad was part of the work crews who poured concrete for the towers, etc. Poma #1 ran where the Sunrise Quad runs today. Poma #3 aka the Giant Poma was super fast and tended to pick me up as a 10 y.o. It serviced some nice advanced runs with about 750′ vertical over a 2200′ length. Poma #3 was likely removed in the 1990s or early aughts. Its speed and initial lift when the platter-pull first engaged the cable made for some epic crashes, akin to stories about the original Al’s Run Poma at Taos.
I remember poma #3 in the late 70s. It was an endless source of entertainment for those waiting in the lift line. Does MH north operate for skiing anymore or is it primarily a tubing hill now?
The Sunrise Quad opened for a few weekends this past season, but MH North is primarily used for their tubing park. Mr. More at some point bought some water rights from a camp located several thousand vertical feet below the bottom of poma #3, but it would have been expensive to pump that water uphill for a snowmaking system – he also dug a well at the present area and put in a few snowguns, but there wasn’t enough water up there in the aquifer to make it viable. I’ve heard thru the grapevine that people sometimes ski the poma #3 runs on powder days and use climbing skins to go back up for more runs.
It’s too bad Warren Miller didn’t film the poma #3 entertainment as it was quite entertaining unless someone wiped out above you and began sliding down the poma track towards you!
I vividly remember skiing there on a powder day back around 1978 or 79. There was a huge lift line on poma 3. Many people couldn’t handle the sudden jerk when the carrier engaged with the rope (plus the lift path was very steep) and crashed. Opportunistic skiers who didn’t want to wait in the lift line would stand just above the crash zone and try and poach the now-empty carriers. They would then crash out. It was absolute chaos but entertaining for the crowd waiting patiently in the lift line. I think we ended up getting in one or two runs in an hour (on a slope with maybe 400 feet of vert).
Are there (or have there been) any plans to connect Mountain High East and West? They are so close, and two lifts going down both sides of the canyon would be the only things needed.
Current CEO Karl Kapuscinski had some initial studies performed about Sawmill Canyon in the late 1990s, with proposed run and lift locations. The local US Forest Service Valyermo office received an interest inquiry letter around that time, too. Nothing further has happened that I could find stories about online; I’d hazard a guess that the expense to do the EIR and related studies, with no guarantee of approval, nixed the project fairly early on. Another factor is that the avalanche danger is high in several parts of Sawmill Canyon, as well as in Government Canyon, immediately east of MH East. It is expensive to perform avalanche mitigation on an as needed basis, which is not every year due to wildly fluctuating snowfall in the San Gabriel Mountains. An actor who was an experienced BC skier perished in one of those canyons over a decade ago.
All the lifts at East needed new haul ropes due to the fire. 8 and 11 got them. 9 and 10 not worth the money and are being retired. 7 is also done for non fire related reasons.
Lift Blog 
On the trail map, it says that Exhibition is a triple.
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On the 2007 and below trail maps it was still the Borvig double.
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how come there is no lift 7?
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Lift 7 is sunrise
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There are 106 chairs on Coyote and Roadrunner
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The original Blue Ridge single chair was located where #6 Exhibition is today. I read where the old single was built about 1947. There was a warming hut about 100′ away. A Blue Ridge double went from the present base to a small knoll just N from the bottom of today’s Wyatt Run. That double was likely in place during the 1950s – it was ssllooww! The #9 Competition at Mt. High East [previously Holiday Hill] was a single chair when I began skiing Holiday Hill in 1965. Mt. High North [previously Table Mt., then Ski Sunrise in 73/74] had 3 Poma platter-pull lifts from the mid-1950s. My Dad was a classmate of the 2d owner Howard More in the 1930s, and Dad was part of the work crews who poured concrete for the towers, etc. Poma #1 ran where the Sunrise Quad runs today. Poma #3 aka the Giant Poma was super fast and tended to pick me up as a 10 y.o. It serviced some nice advanced runs with about 750′ vertical over a 2200′ length. Poma #3 was likely removed in the 1990s or early aughts. Its speed and initial lift when the platter-pull first engaged the cable made for some epic crashes, akin to stories about the original Al’s Run Poma at Taos.
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I remember poma #3 in the late 70s. It was an endless source of entertainment for those waiting in the lift line. Does MH north operate for skiing anymore or is it primarily a tubing hill now?
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Sunrise Quad opened for a few weekends this past season, but MH North is primarily used for their tubing park. Mr. More at some point bought some water rights from a camp located several thousand vertical feet below the bottom of poma #3, but it would have been expensive to pump that water uphill for a snowmaking system – he also dug a well at the present area and put in a few snowguns, but there wasn’t enough water up there in the aquifer to make it viable. I’ve heard thru the grapevine that people sometimes ski the poma #3 runs on powder days and use climbing skins to go back up for more runs.
It’s too bad Warren Miller didn’t film the poma #3 entertainment as it was quite entertaining unless someone wiped out above you and began sliding down the poma track towards you!
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I vividly remember skiing there on a powder day back around 1978 or 79. There was a huge lift line on poma 3. Many people couldn’t handle the sudden jerk when the carrier engaged with the rope (plus the lift path was very steep) and crashed. Opportunistic skiers who didn’t want to wait in the lift line would stand just above the crash zone and try and poach the now-empty carriers. They would then crash out. It was absolute chaos but entertaining for the crowd waiting patiently in the lift line. I think we ended up getting in one or two runs in an hour (on a slope with maybe 400 feet of vert).
LikeLike
Are there (or have there been) any plans to connect Mountain High East and West? They are so close, and two lifts going down both sides of the canyon would be the only things needed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Current CEO Karl Kapuscinski had some initial studies performed about Sawmill Canyon in the late 1990s, with proposed run and lift locations. The local US Forest Service Valyermo office received an interest inquiry letter around that time, too. Nothing further has happened that I could find stories about online; I’d hazard a guess that the expense to do the EIR and related studies, with no guarantee of approval, nixed the project fairly early on. Another factor is that the avalanche danger is high in several parts of Sawmill Canyon, as well as in Government Canyon, immediately east of MH East. It is expensive to perform avalanche mitigation on an as needed basis, which is not every year due to wildly fluctuating snowfall in the San Gabriel Mountains. An actor who was an experienced BC skier perished in one of those canyons over a decade ago.
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I wonder that because mt high competitor bear mountain and snow summit are connecting would make mt high east and west want to connect
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this mountain has a lot of different companies for lifts
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Any update on how the fires affected this place? Did Discovery and Mountain high express survive?
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The express Survived and Discovery has some minor damage
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All the lifts at East needed new haul ropes due to the fire. 8 and 11 got them. 9 and 10 not worth the money and are being retired. 7 is also done for non fire related reasons.
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So the sunrise quad chair 9 competition and chair 9 easy rider will never operate again? :(
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I mean Chair 10 easy rider not chair 9.
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