While a few skiers and riders have been out and about over the past few weeks (ourselves included), the snowpack has been thin and the skiing generally desperate. Sunday and Monday’s storm delivered and a fair bit of skiing has finally opened up!
Coming in on a west-northwesterly track, the storm heavily favored the Sawtooths and Galena Summit. Most higher elevations seemed to pick up 16-18″ of new snow. While definitely on the denser side, it’ll help lay down a decent base. In many places this storm is falling on a weak snowpack, especially where pre-existing snow that fell back in October has turned to weak facets.
Expecting unstable conditions, we opted for safe low-angle tree skiing on Banner Summit and weren’t disappointed. On sheltered mid-elevations we found a supportable 3 foot base and much-improved coverage from our last exploratory mission. We did find some unsettling layers in the snowpack and experienced at least one decent collapse. No reason to push it with great skiing to be had on safe slope angles!
I expect the Sawtooths picked up a good wallop of new snow and look forward to a recon mission next week to the Williams Peak Hut in advance of our upcoming Backcountry Skills Course December 13-15. By the way, we still have a few openings for this super fun program so get in touch if you’re interested!
Check out the photos, and thanks to our intern Tanner for the great photography!
