Baldy Backcountry

While the resort looked a bit thin down low, the backcountry up high was glorious. It was -6 all day and despite the thick cloud, the riding was great. The snowpack was dense enough to provide easy climbing, with 20 cms of soft recent snow on top.

Our test pit was on a steep SE face, with some noticeable change in snow quality from the shaded NE aspects we started the day in. The hard result (CTH22 down 45cm) appeared to be in the December crust, between 2 thin layers of ice. Snowpack above this was well consolidated. Below 45 cms was mostly faceted. The November crust was maybe 25 cms up from the ground and was surrounded by facets. We only experienced 1 settlement on our uptrack, and generally saw no signs of instability.