Thursday, February 23, 2017

Habeggers Again

I got out for a short tour with my friend Anne S. yesterday. With moderate to heavy snowfall and very strong winds reported we decided to go for a safe and sheltered area. Habegger's fit the bill - again.

The storm was still winding down in the high country.

Sure enough there was plenty of evidence of the high winds.

The cross loaded slopes on Table Mountain were dramatic.

 Wind sculpted snow on the ridge above the glades.

The wind packed snow on the ridge made for fairly easy travel.

Light flurries rolled in as we neared the top.

The glades skied better than expected. We enjoyed a few inches of light snow over a denser base.

We were concerned about avalanche hazard. The snow pack was certainly "up side down" (i.e. dense snow over a less dense layer), but there were no shooting cracks and no whumping. Stomping on rollovers produced no results either.

Skiing in wind exposed area was a smorgasbord of supportable wind board, breakable wind crust, a little fluff over a dense base (like in the glades), and a very funky melt/freeze crust where the wind had stripped all of the new snow.

Beautiful day. Glad we got out.

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