Quick report
We were (SO) pleasantly surprised by the snow totals today. Stepped off the sled in Noisy Basin and were up to our knees in it. Trail breaking was consistenly above-the-knee all day, yet fairly effortless given the super light density of the snow. It felt quite right-side-up, and despite there being 2+ feet of snow from the get-go, we couldn't find any signs of instability other than very loose, very dry sloughs on steeper (35 degrees) slopes. Stomped around on some test slopes and again, nothing. The runs down to Black Lake had closer to 3 feet of fluffy new snow, rather than 2. Hard to believe there were 60 mph gusts above us the night previous, since there was zero wind affect on the snow from start to finish. This is all true - not your average day in the Jewel, to say the least. Especially since we only encountered one other party out there all day. "Top 5 deepest days in the Flathead" was overheard by one very stoked skier in the group. It snowed consistently throughout the day, at plenty of times hard, with no wind. Likely gained at least another 4+ inches throughout the day up high, and 3 or so inches on the truck by the time we returned to it.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- none
Snowed. All day, without wind. We didn't linger at the notch at the end of the day, but it was blowing lightly by the time we dropped down to the sled (4 pm).
Snowpack
We were (SO) pleasantly surprised by the snow totals today. Stepped off the sled in Noisy Basin and were up to our knees in it. Trail breaking was consistenly above-the-knee all day, yet fairly effortless given the super light density of the snow. It felt quite right-side-up, and despite there being 2+ feet of snow from the get-go, we couldn't find any signs of instability other than very loose, very dry sloughs on steeper (30-34 degrees) slopes. Stomped around on some test slopes and again, nothing. Hard to believe there were 60 mph gusts above us the night previous, since there was zero wind affect on the snow from start to finish. Not your average day in the Jewel, to say the least. Especially since we only encountered one other party out there all day :)