Crystal - 04/12

Pretty nice average spring Friday, arrive at 8:30, filtered sun through broken clouds from the leading edge of the newest storm, jumped into an empty bucket at 8:50, good vis, fast nice groomers screamer runs – best was something I think it is called Pro Course? in GreenValley – nice perfect smooth soft winter quality groomer, all the other groomers were more typical cold frozen spring quality early – but at least they were smooth with good vis. Groomers started to get soft by 10am, when I started to poke around the edges. By 10:15 the leading edge of the current weather system had moved through and the sun was full on nice. Powder Bowl skiers left side looked like the place to go – so I went… Noticed lots of folks doing skiers right side – some looked good, lots of others not so good, but the left side got enough sun to make it worth a few more repeats. HC chair side looked smooth enough with not big trenches from the last few days of warm weather, so CB side should be nice over the next few days with new snow. Again any place that’s still smooth is pretty nice. Another fun day for the hamster. Was getting grey when I left and starting to snow.

Other – Soup was Clam Chow (almost stopped long enough to have some, but I had a short day planned, so no soup for me). Pay lot was small and not full, rest of the A lot was almost full.

Here is the other side of that coin: by 15:00 the snow was blowing in steadily. South was open and we dropped into Avalanche basin. Some decent areas in the trees and sheltered pockets, and tracks were being covered slowly. Definitely not a powder day today - more of a crust & cookies day - though Sunday holds promise. Snow coming down was cold and quality, but seems like a potential for wind loading: those NE slopes could be interesting.

Pit dug for educational purposes revealed a thick weak layer at 45cm, 6700' SW, failed at 16 taps with ~Q3. I think that bullet-proof crust is keeping everything in check.