Sunshine? Moderate Temps? Good snow (sorta)? Boy I love spring time! Whoops, it’s still December and we’re only 9 days into winter. My bad.
The crew has been out riding a lot lately. Nothing too epic thanks to the cloudy skies, but the last few days have been beautiful, sunny and decent skiing if you know where to look. Laird and I toured up to a non-descript location yesterday morning, one of my first dawn patrol sessions in a month or more. We stuck to some north facing aspects because they were holding much deeper snow and we all got a little tired of skiing some of the wind hammered and crusty south aspects.
The sun came slowly across the valley and upped our lighting from “the darkness” to “visible.” Laird might have some better pictures. If so I will add them into the post. The two chutes we skied weren’t big, but coming off that huge wind event we wanted to test the north facing aspects before dropping in on bigger lines. The snow was great when you broke out onto the aprons, but up high you had to manage a bit of a wind crust. Our compression test didn’t show too much instability, but we did get a hard failure on the ground.  The weak layer…4 inches of well developed depth hoar.
We hit up 16 mile on the way down as well. It was relatively fun I guess, but the whooptee do’s, grass exposure and hip to rock landings were not as exciting as one might imagine. I might even call it skied out. If you need some turns, don’t have time for a tour and don’t mind possibly bouncing off some rocks then I’d say go for it!
Epic rock pillow line!
Cold temps and clear skies are in the forecast. High pressure will dominate for the following week or so. NOAA forecasters are using cool science words like climatology, cyclonic air flow, and apparently, this is a direct quote: “THE NORTHERN STREAM IS SQUIRTING NORTHWEST ACROSS THE BERING SEA INTO SIBERIA.”
Thanks for the report. Skied Microdot north aspect on Dec. 27; good snow (a little stale), a couple of rocks.
Have you tried the north side of Friendship Pass this season? I’ve been skiing it the past few seasons, but haven’t made it there this season. I’ve seen and felt evidence of avalanches at Friendship, please take care.
Haven’t hit it yet. The north aspects are definitely holding some goods. Saw your pictures and it looks like you guys had a good time on Nosebleed. Check back for the video from today!
See you out there!