Snow was deep and untracked everywhere Friday and then the sun came out today. Excellent conditions for being so early in the season. A few things other than my new gear rubbed me the wrong way, though. On Friday, Chair 8 closed down before we even had a chance to get to it as a pin failed and an empty chair fell of the lift. Ops shut it down and evacuated the lift, talk about a bummer if you hustled to get there early and were unlucky enough to get stuck on it for hours. Since mtn ops were busy with the Chair 8 fiasco they had to delay the opening of Chair 1 and Pan Face as they still had prep work to do: blasting, grooming, etc. It seem like Baker's becoming increasingly mis-managed: one issue on the mountain shouldn't snowball into many.
I've got a lot of video to sort through and hack together tomorrow, so I'll post more then. One important note: the snowpack up there is very light and unconsolidated. In steep terrain you do not stop sinking until you reach terra firma. There also appear to be 1+ faceted layers which have caused numerous small and the occasional medium slab on the Arm and the Canyon side of Hemis. Tree wells are rampant and quite dangerous, as I discovered first hand Friday afternoon. Fortunately the tree well that snagged me was in a very steep area on Chicken Ridge and while my feet were buried several feet deep, my head and face were only under 6-8 inches and I was able to clear the snow in front of me before it hardened and summon help from nearby partners scrambling to locate me. Consider riding with a beacon in steep, untracked terrain until things settle this week.
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