Pulpit Knobs

Skied pulpit 1 and 2 today. Access across the lake worked well, lake well frozen. The river didn't look so frozen from the top of P1. The clouds lifted mid morning, wind was calm or very light most of the day, and temps were warm enough in the sun and pretty cold in the shade. Pulpit 1 South slope held a mix of tracks and fresh in the first opening in the trees straight below the summit. Found the recent sun crust 20-30 down, not too noticeable anywhere with a bit of tree cover, but pretty hard in the openings. Surface snow was very soft, with either a fluffy or sugary, faceted texture. Skied fast but not very supportive. Pulpit 2 we skied what we believe was gully #3 to exit. First gully up the ridge from the wide open #2 gully. There are 2 large trees across the gully about halfway down, one member of the party went underneath them, the other 2 skied around on the skier's right. Conditions were deep, soft facetted powder. Again not very supportive and very sluffy. The line was filled in enough above the downed trees to ski well, but definitely had some texture still poking through from the ground below. Below the downed trees also skied well until the fan, where dense immature conifers required slow, careful skiing.

-26 in the shade at the col between pulpits 1 and 2. Temps were more reasonable outside of this local cold sink, and much more reasonable in the sun.