It’s Christmas tomorrow and I hope y’all get the new gear and gadgets you’ve been eyeing. Just remember to limit the cursing to one profanity a minute while you are working out the kinks in the backcountry. It was great to get the huge dump last week and beyond, I think the storm totals (at least at our house) were over 24″. Per what I have been calling the Hatcher Occurance, we also got our wonderful 3 days of howling winds. Upper ridgelines, peaks and bowls are WORKED. By worked I mean the snow is thin, the sastrugi is thick and the wind crust is packed.
I toured up president’s today and found some good east – northeast facing snow up to about 3500 ft. After climbing higher the sastrugi and wind crust was less than favorable, but still somewhat fun. Dug a hand pit and didn’t find much energy, just a hard wind crust on top ranging from 1/4″ to 2″. Still, there were no shooting cracks or whumping to be heard. I would have liked to ski a steeper line today, but I was all by my onesy.
Before I headed down the moon rose over the mint valley and was looking pretty rad. Check out the scouring along the ridgelines in both shots. The dominant storm flow was SE, but when it funnels through the valleys it seems to hit everything. On a non hatcher note we hit some urban stuff down in Rage City. It was all fun and games till someone severely sprained their ankle and knee in one fail swoop.
More of the same weather pattern in the forecast. There’s a low moving around the gulf giving us warm weather bringing a little rain down low and some snow up high. Hey, it could be better, but it could also be a lot worse…the mild temps have been good for the snow (More detail on the message board). Merry christmas and pray for snow!
