Just keep going up...

Drove up Corbin road today on an exploratory mission. While the snowpack at valley bottom was barely thick enough to skin we carried on up in hopes of more snow. At about 1800m the base started to become noticeably thicker, with some turns become possible in loaded areas around 1900m. At 2000-2100m the skiing became excellent, with about 20-30cm of new snow on a slightly spooky, but mostly supportive melt/freeze crust from the long drought. We observed some whumphing and failures of this layer while skinning up the road at roughly 2000m, but it failed to propagate and was supportive on steeper slopes. The new snow is taking time to adhere to this melt/freeze layer, though propagation did not occur when the bond failed on a ski cut on a ~30° slope. Above 2100m the skiing was excellent, with roughly the same amount of new snow (more wind loading in some areas) but without the melt/freeze layer underneath. We were able to ski down to about 1850m before we chose to stick to the road, with a few (extra) thin and sporty spots before we reached the valley bottom.