Quick report
There was a good refreeze in the area, especially above 9000 ft. On our skin up from near the top of Chair 6, the SE/E face was starting to soften with a ski pen of 1 cm and a boot pen of 5 cm. There was significant meltout on the usual skin track/cat road to the saddle: it was all dirt. But it was possible to skin on snow just left of there. The other side of the mountain was a different story altogether. At 10;30, the NW face into the trees was hard and chattery with no penetration. The bits in the shade of the trees were particularly bad. Swinging around to the skier's right on the west aspects, and lower down, improved the skiing, but in general, this first descent was hard and loud.
Once down in the meadow, we decided to skin up and ski down an east slope. About halfway up, we decided to boot up the lower angle rocks on the ridge, rather than slipping and sliding on the softening snow. At that point, around 11:00 am, it was still too hard to kick in significantly with the skis but not soft enough to kick in with the boots. We descended at noon, and by then, ski pen was about 4 cm and boot pen was about 10 cm. When I descended the steepest parts of the slope, which were above 40 degrees, I released some wet loose slides with some beach ball size pinwheels which traveled about 10 ft.
Our skin back was surprising in a couple of ways. First, the snow on these north aspects remained firm even in the early afternoon with a ski pen of less than 1 cm. In the shade, it remained bulletproof hard. Second, there were previous wind effects across the trees and gullies, and they created hard, small, and steep halfpipes, which were difficult to cross on skis with skins. I transitioned to descent mode in order to cross these halfpipes; the edges held, whereas with the skins, we both slid and fell down the slope.
Our original plan had been to go to Melissa Coray and the Emigrant Lake area. But a Kirkwood employee informed us that the backside is now closed for the season.
On the steep east facing descent at noon, I released some pinwheels that slowly traveled about 10 ft downhill.Weather
- Air Temp
- 50s
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
A warm and beautiful day. At times, a light wind, especially on the ridges but largely calm.
Snowpack
There was a good refreeze in the area last night. South and east faces were soft and ready by mid-morning, and north and west faces were hard on our initial descent. The north faces remained surprisingly firm on the ascent back at between 12:45-1:45 pm. The recent snow has largely disappeared from south faces.