Black Tusk Powder Laps

1) The road to rubble creek parking is plowed, but very icy. Bring chains. 2) The lake is not frozen. We were able to skin up from the car, carrying our skis for a few short bits. About 20cm of fresh, heavy snow at the car park, getting progressively deeper as we got higher. Ski penetration varied from boot top to over knee deep in the drifts by the time we reached Taylor Meadows. We enjoyed great views from the meadows, which allowed us to spot crown lines on Mt Price (on a steep N aspect) and over towards Panorama/Gentian (on a steep W aspect). We also observed wind affect in open areas at treeline and above, as well as a bit of spindrift on ridge tops in the light breeze. Skied two fantastic laps on low angle south facing terrain in deep and mostly unconsolidated snow. On our second lap we noticed that the snow was getting slightly heavier, with a very thin sun crust on aspects that were now in the shadows. Two hand shear tests produced results 50-60 down, suggesting that the storm snow had not fully bonded to the previous surface. We were able to ski down to about 900m or about 2km from the car park (watch for sharks!).