Quick report
Tour of Barlow Butte today, descended down glades/forest on lower angle ridge to the SW. Snow levels were very low in the trees along both up and downhill routes ( N and SW aspects). ~2in of cold, grainy powder on rain affected ice. On SW aspects around 3800 - 4200 ft, the new snow sat directly on dirt and vegetation. Above roughly 4800, we observed 2-4 inches of new snow sitting on a very weak crust. Digging briefly into the snow, the crust seemed about 1in thick at the top of the butte, and crumbled easily in my hand. On the descent, in open/gladed areas, the new snow made for good skiing up high, but was loose and sluffed easily off of icy surfaces halfway down the butte. However, there was not enough accumulation (or pitch on our route) for this to be consequential. The densely treed areas were un-skiable due to the icy surfaces and uncovered small trees and underbrush. Mostly navigated with kick turns. No other signs of instability, mostly because there wasn’t enough snow. We bootpacked roughly the last 300 vertical feet of our route. Barlow Butte needs significantly more snow before anything densely treed is skiable. In open glades the new snow coming this week will add to this weekend’s snow which sits on variable surfaces, including ice and very weak crust towards the top of the butte.