Monk’in Around

The day started off with a stop at hummingbird near whitewater, coverage was so poor we made the decision to drive to the pass instead. Once at the pass we went for an early season fitness/gear check/snow check walk and scored a grand total of zero turns. Toured up to the cabins via Monk and then into Baldy SE to try and see how things were. The bulletproof crust seemed to improve on the SE face. An upgrade from unbreakable to somewhat breakable. You would have to be feeling very sporty to want to ride anything in these conditions. Pretty rock solid all over. Great if you’re looking to practice your skimo, but otherwise the skiing condition definitely has some room to improve.

Generally cloudy, clearing around 15:00 when we left the parking lot. Light winds throughout day. No signs of snow transport at mountain tops.

Quick pit at 1700m on SE facing 30 degree slope. There was ~5cm of graupel/unconsolidated snow above the 4-7cm MF/rain crust that is blanketing the region. This crust did seem more breakable than reports from the other side of the highway, but only once we were off the beaten path and above 1650m. This crust was sitting on ~65cm of wet mashed potato snow, and then into the Nov 16 crust.