Quick report
Explored the commonwealth basin today to find the coverage still painfully thin down low. 8-10 inches of new, low density snow. Lots of creek crossings are out and require walking, and the travel routes are different than a typical season. The coverage across the Boulder field below the cliffs past commonwealth creek is particularly thin, with travel through the lower part of the Boulder field the easiest. The creek is raging through this area, with high flow on the waterfall on the cliffs, and requires finding the least wet crossing. It was ‘almost’ snow covered this morning, but with people crossing it throughout the day, it was all water on the way out. 2 other creek crossings to deal with on the way up. The new Crust is quite thick and the new light snow was not bonded well, making for some tough skinning through the forest. Coverage and travel improves greatly around 4400, where it was pleasant to the top of our run in the second gully off Kendall. The swathe itself isn’t filled in like normal with the best turns being up high in the open. Tree skiing was decent on the Kendall trees side, but the crust is very evident below the light snow. The creek on the skiers left side of Kendall is loosely covered, with holes abound. Crossing was not a problem, but would be in some places. Skiing down the normal exit from big trees via the pct requires getting across a couple creeks. Doable, but not the most pleasant. We made the mistake of staying high when we came back towards the cliffs above the Boulder field (a normal exit on a normal snow year, but the crossing is not in up there). Water running high through this area , and had to get through some alder to get back to the same crossing as the AM. Ski out was fun as usual back along the track in. The open holes and creeks with thin snow bridges required some extra attention.