Quick report
<2' of snow on the ground at McBride Springs, but the forest service road has been well packed by other skiers, snowshoers, and hikers, making for easy skinning. This thin snowpack is fairly consistent up to about 5500', and then between 5500' and 6000' the snow depth increases dramatically. Below 5500' descending through the trees is inadvisable if not impossible. Above 6000' I wasn't worried about hitting anything. Above 6000' on the north aspect I skied the snow was right side up and still relatively light and dry by the end of the day. I did notice a very thin sun crust starting to form on south or flat aspects above 6000'. Tree bombs, even on the north aspect were also present though the trees still retained most of their snow by the end of the day (>6000'). Roughly calf deep ski penetration made for medium to high difficulty trail breaking conditions, which I fortunately didn't have to do much of because there was already a well compacted skin track. Conditions were excellent powder skiing on the descent, though the area I was in was surprisingly tracked out and looked more like sidecountry than backcountry. Still great skiing though! The well compacted forest road surface made for a quick and easy downhill exit. Temperature hung just below freezing (in the shade) between 1:30pm and 4:30pm. No red flags, even on ski cuts on short 35 degree convex features. Minor dry loose sluffing in the steepest sections.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 30
- Cloud Cover
- clear