Tilly Jane

Avalanche concerns are minimal below 7500 ft on this side of the mountain. The snowpack remains locked up, and the more significant hazard continues to be the unforgiving, icy surfaces that exist in the alpine. 

The Tilly Jane area is thin and variable as you'd expect for being in the rain-shadow of the mountain. The Tilly Jane ski trail has a few patchy sections in the lower trees and on south aspects, but it still provided mostly consistent coverage to the TH.  

Travel along the ski trail & burn during the morning hours was fast and firm. Once above the Tilly Jane cabin at 5800 ft, surfaces stayed supportable, but a few sections of dry snow started popping up in gully depressions and on north-facing features. Once at treeline, the ski crampons came out and surfaces became nearly bulletproof on the Cooper Spur moraine. Despite the firm surfaces, I still managed to observe small amounts of blowing snow on the Cooper Spur ridge near Tie-in-Rock. 

The descent was loud and icy until I dropped into the trees. Below the cabin, sun-exposed slopes offered decent corn skiing by the late morning hours.