Waterhouse

Starting out, the winds were starting to pick up from the SW. Some cirrus clouds approached from the SW, but during the tour, it was mostly sunny with blue skies. On Grass Lake, there was some serious melt from the last few days (Picture 1, near bottom of the trees), but in the middle of the lake at 11:15 am, it was still frozen hard. The snow on top was just starting to soften. On the ascent slope, there was no wind until about the last 600 feet up. It was clear that there had not been a hard refreeze last night. At 8000 feet, there was a top crust of 2 cm, at 8700 feet 4 cm, and at 9400 feet, 8 cm. The descent had highly variable snow conditions (see Picture 2 of snow on ridge). At the top, on N/NW aspects there was hard but grippy snow, which softened lower down, especially in the sun. In this top section, I sometimes skied through some facets in tightly clustered trees. But everywhere else, there was bone hard snow, breakable crust, wind board, and sastrugi. Below 8700 feet, I switched to the NE/E aspects, and there was almost an inch of soft snow on top of harder snow in the sun, which provided very enjoyable skiing. But anything in the shade was still rock hard. Back on the lake, the winds picked up again to moderate with stronger gusts. Ending the tour at 2:30 pm, it was still sunny with blue skies with some clouds far off on the horizon to the SW/W.

Waterhouse

Quick report

Weather