Quick report
Coverage is thin in this area, especially in the meadow. The bushes are just barely or not quite covered, and the skis sank into holes created by the bushes. Making a decent skin track was difficult due to the obstacles. The SE aspects we climbed to get to the ridge was breakable crust. Once on the ridge, the snow on the other side was powder on the northerly aspects. At about 2 pm, on the ridge, it began to snow soft graupel (see picture). This ridge has seen some wind activity from mainly the SW and NW (see picture). All along the ridge, there were many wind drifts around rocks. I stamped on a good number of them created by both SW and NW winds. They were super stubborn, very hard to collapse. The ski down from our high point of 7800 ft was quite enjoyable with light wind crust on the NE aspect for the first 200 ft down. On the N, NE, and E aspects down to 6800 ft, we had powder skiing, sometimes a touch heavy. The last 200 ft down was light breakable crust.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 34 F
- Cloud Cover
- scattered
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Recent Snowfall
- 8-16 cm
We had a little of everything from blue skies at times to light snow.
Snowpack
In the meadow starting out from Wintoon, HS was 60 cm with a crust 10cm down from the top. On the ridge at 6,843 ft, HS was 70 cm with crusts at 8 cm and 24 cm down from the top. At 7,580 ft, HS was 76 cm with crusts at 16 cm and 40 cm down from the top.