Thursday, February 16, 2012

Bishop Bowl

I finally got out and enjoyed the new snow.

Solo trip up Bishop Bowl.

The moraine above Aspendell is basically dry, so I endured about an hour of hiking to get to the snow. Which put me quite a ways east of the usual approach gully. So another hour of skinning brought me to the base of the slopes.

Went up the trees just right of the open slope in the center.

There was absolutely no evidence of wind affecting the new fallen snow. It had a uniform depth of about 12", a little more up high, a little less low.
It made for a lot of work trail breaking.
After five hours I finally arrived at the North Ridge and was duly rewarded with this fine view of the Paiute Crags and Mt. Emerson.
I had no inclination to head to the summit another 400' above me.
The view north to Basin and Tom.
The skiing was fantastic all the way down.
Coverage was fine in the trees where the snow depth was 2' to 3', but many of the open slopes were nothing but a foot of new, light snow over talus.

I did experience some collapsing snow layers and some short cracks with slight soft slab movement on some of my kick turns. The descent was all low angle. Steeper, convex slopes in this area are suspect for the time being.

No comments: