Basic Hot Sun Skiing Strategies

Hey all,  I'd like to start late season (May, June) skiing.  Normally, I am windsurfing full time by now, but I have lost interest in the sport so I'm looking to extend the ski season.     

I am confused about climbing strategies for hot sunny days.  I understand to start early and climb while the snow is still frozen, but if I am doing a south facing climb (like Adams south climb), how do I find a safe ski route down in the afternoon?  I imagine I can find some slightly south east facing aspects that should be more stable, but much of that climb faces due south.  Also, I suppose I could wait until evening for my descent and carefully execute ski cuts.  Or, I could go on cool cloudy day, but I WOULD like to ski some corn...  Other ideas?   Thanks (i tried the search feature, but couldn't narrow it down enough).

My plan is to simply ski lower on the mountain if the sun is really baking and things promise to become unstable.  No summit fever here.

thanks!

the basic idea is to pick a time when you think the snow will be corny and safe to ski. For south facing slopes that will be early, for north facing slopes, it will be later. Take that time, wether it's 4pm or 11am and count back from that however long you expect it to take you to get up the mountain. you will probably find yourself at a very early start time.

so for adams:

say you think the slope will be safe and fun to ski by noon and you think it will take you 8 hours to climb up, you should probably be hiking by 330am or 4am.

getting up early sucks, but on the plus side it frees up your afternoons

What Sam said as a general rule.

Specific to the dog route on Adams in June/July: usually the best line (less frozen) off the summit is a moderately steep SE aspect pitch to skier's left of the climbing route. It's not obvious from the summit. Look for it while you are skinning up. Once down from that, expect variable conditions, corn, slush, mush, postholes, sun cups and glissade runnels as you descend. There are some nice variations off to the side of the climber's route which don't get postholed. Take a 7.5' map to make sure you aren't skiing into a difficult position. Also, the SW Chutes are often in shape top to bottom in June/July.

I like to carry rain-x wipes to clean pollen off my bases.

Also if you're going to Adams you should ski the sw chutes. There will probably be a group of folks there waiting at Piker's Peak for conditions to become ideal. When I skied it there was a guy claiming to anyone who would listen that it would never be in shape that day for skiing. We watched a couple take off at about 1pm when it was still icy on top. I watched them ski it with no problems so we took off. It was icy on top, perfect corn in the middle, and mush at the bottom. I think at the top of the chute I skied over to skiers right where the slope has a slightly more southerly aspect.

If you are actually climbing the route you are going to ski it should be pretty obvious if conditions are good.

Done SW Chutes Adams 5 times with nearly perfect corn every time( lucky)
Always in the first week of July on a really hot day in lowlands ( talking high 80's ,90's)
Best time for descent for me was always between noon and 1:00 Pm latest.
From my experience( others that followed later than me) after 2:00 can get too mushy at bottom.
6 hrs from Cold Springs to Pikers for me.
I leave at 6.00 am, get to Pikers @12:00, rest legs, descent 12.30 ... usually on da money as far as corn.

as a general rule, a steeper pitch will corn up faster than a lower angle pitch given the same elevation and aspect, so its not uncommon for the top of things like the SW chutes to appear not ready for skiing while its corn-o-clock where the pitch rolls over.

...and for what its worth, a helmet isn't a bad idea for the sw chutes...for years i never wore one or saw others wear a helmet on the sw chutes, but a couple 4th of July's ago, we had some pretty major rockfall coming off the adjacent rubble ridges.. ie- there was a tv sized boulder that tried to take my head off (not that a helmet woulda done much in that case)