Three Days Above Indy

 I spent the last three days skiing above Independence. It's quiet down there. The terrain is interesting, and it's kinda rare to ski the low/mid elevation terrain in that zone.

 Thursday I went back to the slopes directly above Gray's Meadow. It was immediately apparent that the wind had blown quite hard here and had definitely reduced the snow quality.

 The idea for the day was to skin back up this ridge and ski the bowl back center.

Up high near the bowl most of the snow in the trees was still good while many of the open areas showed signs of a wind crust.

Burned, dead, but still proud.

The view from the top of the bowl. Had a splendid run from here.

Next day I took my buddy Chris in to ski the slopes in Lime Canyon. Wind damage here was even worse than I expected, but we still enjoyed fair to good skiing.

The exit out the canyon bottom is getting pretty thin and brushy. Chris dealt with it with good humor.

Yesterday I headed back to Lime Canyon hoping to ski one of the several north facing, sheltered chutes further back in the drainage.

Pleasing granite outcrops in the main canyon.

My hopes of finding good snow in the chutes were greatly misplaced! Great terrain. Poor snow.

South facing slopes were warm and inviting. I started to wonder if maybe they'd ski well.

Trees were no help in mitigating the wind damage.

Soon a good looking south facing chute appeared. Previous skiers had skinned up a short ways and turned around. I followed their track, finding the snow still frozen and crunchy.

I traversed out of the chute onto this southeast facing slope which had been baking in the sun longer. I lucked out and found good skiing here.

 An hour earlier it would have been crunchy, an hour later it would have been mashed potatoes. Sometimes timing is everything.

I avoided the brushy canyon bottom by taking a high, downward traverse to the slopes above the road, which provided fun skiing on soft, faceted snow over bush moguls.

Memorable!