The recent snowstorms have given us quite a bit of snow out here in Ptown. A friend and I decided to forego the usual no viz december Hatcher session. We headed up a non-descript mountain through some nice glades in search of powder and a new locale.
Choices…
Climbing through the Glades
Scouting Lines
DEEP
B Vaughan skies the Birch
Straightlining it
Keepin it conservative
Was it really that deep? Check out the skin track.
Once we got to about 2000 ft there was constant collapse of the snowpack under foot. We had a few shooting cracks on some of the slopes and rollovers but nothing that was extremely worrisome until we reached open slopes. The settling could be heard rippling far the down slopes. After digging through the snow we found a persistent layer of depth hoar right at the ground. The large amount of new snow was sitting right on top of it…BUMMER. Oh well, the pack will settle out over time, the snow will get even deeper and we will return.
Also, the full moon skiing at Hatcher last night was epic. We did a few runs down the slope behind the A-Frame in a foot of blower pow and on the way out it began to clear up so we decided to shred freshly dumped 16 mile under a starry sky and full moon. The news of the day: IT’S STILL SNOWING!
