Waterhouse Peak

I've seen multiple backcountry skiers gearing for Waterhouse Peak as I've driven past on my way to Carson Pass over the last few weeks and finally decided to check out coverage at Waterhouse. It's not great and frankly I don't recommend it until we get a couple more feet of snow. Coverage was barely sufficient for the lower 500 ish feet and then improved to something a bit more encouraging but still minimal and sketchy. 

It didn't snow during my time on Waterhouse (but there was a solid flurry that dropped a trace of new snow  just before I left the car). From the top and looking to the west it appeared that the storm was getting stuck around Carson Pass. While I expected to find a shallow snowpack at the bottom half of Waterhouse, I was a bit surprised how shallow it was at the top. My pit, dug along the ridge just north of the summit, only had 55 cms of snow. Given that the elevation was 9400 feet at this location the snow was very weak.  The depth hoar at the ground was the most sugary and well developed I've seen this season. It was a little hard to shovel because it was so sugary (maybe a broom would have worked better). An ECTP 14 @5cm and a PST 35/100 (END) confirmed that the large facets were concerning. 

Because of the thin snowpack and many obstacles, I descended cautiously  and did my best to avoid too many scrapes but the weak snow doesn't float you over rocks very well and my board has some new scratches.