February 7, 2009, Norse Peak

Scottk, Nick, and Brendan headed down to Crystal today hoping the expected sun might yield some nice turns in corn snow (TonyM headed for La Paz, Mexico with the girlfriend instead... where are the priorities?).

We headed up the trail to Bullion Basin and, yet again, managed to lose the best route and end up in a complete brush bash before finding our way and meeting up with a nice group of ripping telemarkers from Seattle. Once in the basin, we started climbing the slopes to our left towards the ridge and then onto Norse Peak. The skinning was terrible.... one-half inch of fresh powder on top of very firm crust and/or ice. Some opted to boot up while others kept the skis on. Once on the ridge the going over towards Norse Peak was easy.

Once there, we dropped into Lake Basin, as the slopes looked like they had been cooking in the bright sun for several hours by that point. Great corn snow on the southeast facing aspect for the first several hundred feet down before giving way to crust or mush. (The other group dropped into Cement Basin and then came around to Lake Basin and reportedly found nice turns in Cement Basin as well). The skiing there was good enough that we took multiple laps before heading back down to the cars.

The descent back to the trail was not as bad as anticipated given the skinning in the morning. No corn, but the crust had softened up enough to make for nice turns, although the surface was a bit rough, perhaps from the remnants of old slides. Good turns all the way back to the trail.

This tour needs some sun and warm temps to be good right now. Also, if we don't get some snow any time soon, the slopes from the ridge back down to the trail will not be skiable for too long... there is a lot of bare ground poking through lower down.