Quick report
Posting this a little over a week after the fact (reporting on 4/14, about tours on 4/3 and 4/5), so a bit out of date, but maybe relevant considering the incoming storm may result in somewhat similar conditions soon. Fri 4/3 Went out to BT after the last big storm. There was a solid foot of cold, fresh pow at the sled parking. Interestingly, it seemed the bowl was more wind stripped and not as deep. I decided to skin up to Pucker and check it out, as it looked good from below, and at the time the snow was still cold and good. Around 10:15 all of the sudden the sun started having a huge effect on the snow, as it tends to do this time of year, I just forgot how quickly it can change. Within about 15 minutes the snow started getting way more manky on the skin traverse up to the ridge. There were also roller balls starting to come down from some of the rocky areas, and from my skin track. I felt like I could still get to the entrance to Pucker before it was any worse, but it still took a bit because I had the absolute WORST skin glopping I’ve ever experienced, like seriously boat anchors on both feet. Even with glop stopper! Crazy how bad that can get. At the top of Pucker I chopped a couple pieces of cornice, and it still seemed OK other than roller ball formation. My plan was to drop in and quickly descend in a slight traverse to stay out of my sluff/rollerball path, which worked fine. I wouldn’t have wanted to be descending any later though. I later found out that around the same time a couple guys were transitioning to descend 11 o’clock and got caught in a slide; that report is noted in another observation here. I ran into them at the sled parking and talked to them about it, it sounded like they got slid a fair distance. One guy tweaked his knee a bit and thought he might have torn something; the other guy lost half his splitboard and had to boot the entire way out. 😱 I got his contact info; if anyone finds half a Jones Hovercraft in the crater, hit me up at jimw at pobox dot com and I can put you in touch. All in all it was a good reminder of how quickly new snow can change this time of year when the sun gets on it, something to keep in mind with the next upcoming dump. Sun 4/5 Went back out to BT but to the Smiley/No Name side, as I got some beta that that side was a lot more filled in from the storm. Sure enough, Smiley was riding great a few days after the storm, and not too affected by roller balls. We went up to the ramp, which had some roller balls in it, but it seemed like they were mostly coming off the heating up rocks rather than the snow balling up spontaneously. The snow in there was surprisingly good hot pow. Then went over to look into some N facing terrain above the Bend glacier. That was OK but a bit wind-stripped. The views made up for it though! Note that some of the creeks are starting to open up, while some spots are covered by shallow snow bridges. We found a good exposed creek on the way back for some water, but where it went back under the snow it was a looong ways down there, it sure would suck to unexpectedly fall through into one of those. That evening I went back up to Ball Butte for sunset, which was amazing. I recommend it for the views alone, but it’s also interesting to see first-hand what the snow is doing at times when you’re not normally riding. In this case it was starting to refreeze, but wasn’t hard yet… it actually rode better slightly refrozen like that than some of the mank we encountered at the end of the hot day. Looking forward to the surprise late-season refresh!