We had a romp up towards Cayoosh mountain yesterday. At the parking lot there was roughly 40cm of snow and at ridge top somewhere around 80cm. The upper road was a little more free of alder but neither was too bad. ROCK SKIS are a must.
We noticed a lot of wind effect (previous to the last snowfall) and were quite thankful of it. Although the there was boot top penetration the only good skiing we found was in cross loaded features where there was up to a meter of snow. Anywhere else it was impossible to avoid rock or shrubbery.
A thin rain crust at the parking lot disappeared before we reached the cabin. A compression test at tree line on a northerly cross loaded slope unevenly sheared with moderate results. The top 15cm of southerly slopes got a little soft with the afternoon sun. In the cut blocks there was 2cm surface hoar but it had only grown to about 4mm at tree line.
At tree line we skied it like it was GOOD stability and below treeline it appeared GOOD as well but we didn't come across any slope that had reached the threshold snow-cover to produce an avalanche. We didn't get into the alpine.
Conny Amelunxen
MG
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