Observation: Red Pine Gulch

Yup, still a thin snow cover even on White Baldy, which is high elevation terrain. I'm not sure I've seen it this thin in mid February before.

There was a well beaten track to the ridge leading to the Pfeifferhorn. It seems to be the destination of choice these days.

Wow, hardly any snow at all on the south facing slopes above mid Little Cottonwood Canyon. Could this be a record for mid February? Paorama view with White Pine slide path facing towards the camera and the south ridge of Superior on the far right.

The cooler temperatures froze all the mushy snow from the very warm temperatures these past few days so it was quite icy and hard at lower elevations even at the crack of noon when we headed up.  There are the usual, extremely wide variety of snow surface conditions you would expect when it hasn't snowed much in a month and a half.  Sun crusts and wind crusts, galore.  But as is often the case, the upper elevation, wind and sun sheltered slopes remained pretty good with 3-4 inches of soft, settled snow and recrystallized snow in between the tracks.  The wind board out in the middle of the upper bowl actually was pretty good--kind of like a groomer at a resort, if you used you imagination.