Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Soggy Slogging

 Early last December when I took this photo, I spied this subrange while out hiking. At least a dozen nice drainages for skiing. Hoping for decent coverage and reasonable access, I checked it out this morning.

Access was ok. The truck struggled a bit, but got me pretty close. Skinning was not great on a breakable rain crust for the first hour. Wound up skiing the valley left of center.

Once up into the hills above ~8000' the rain crust thankfully disappeared, although the snow was still quite wet and heavy. The scenery however was magical.

Fascinating rime mini sculpture.

These big, wide open glades skied pretty well.

The clouds rolled in and out occasionally providing incredible light.

The skiing was acceptable. Not the cold light powder I enjoyed a couple of weeks ago, but heavy wet snow over a supportable base.

The exit was slow on soggy snow. Right after I took this photo a squall came in with stinging frozen rain gradually turning to snow.

Before I left for Bishop it was quality not quantity with the snow. Lost the quality, but the quantity is looking good.
 

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