Baldy Tuesday morning
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 12:38 pm
You folks might be amused with this graupel stream. It's on Facebook, sorry for those without accounts... video isn't mine.
These went on for the hour or so it takes to get to the hut, and some (like the above) even cut "river banks" into the snow slopes! Pretty cool...
In other news, as of yesterday morning there is ~6 in of new snow on the trail. Not enough for skiing, obviously, but the hiking is easy and pretty until the hut. Thereafter there is definitely a lot for skiing, cramponing, etc. There were winter conditions in the trees below the S ridge on W side of bowl... mid April powder skiing in socal! I love this place. Skinned from hut to ridge just below chutes then started descent because we had to be back for afternoon classes and didn't have skin wax to treat the 30 lbs of snow that accumulated on each of my skins.
I'm not an avalanche expert by any means, but yesterday the new layer of snow was very unstable on western part of bowl and especially on the E face of the S ridge... skin track + 3 pole basket holes were enough to detach a cohesive slab ~6 in thick (low in bowl). Slab higher is probably thicker higher up because of west winds from last storm. Would exercise caution for a couple more days... we skied the trees for this reason. The same snow will be a prime candidate for skier/hiker-triggered point-releases as the sun has its way. I wouldn't expect the slab to stick around in the sun beyond today, but as a recent observation posted to esac.org shows, wet slides can be serious business--if not for the trigger, then for the people below.
Ominous avalanche reports aside, what an AMAZING way to spend the morning before school! Seriously, the federal government should levy an "awesome place" tax on us to make it up to the poor souls of the Midwest.
These went on for the hour or so it takes to get to the hut, and some (like the above) even cut "river banks" into the snow slopes! Pretty cool...
In other news, as of yesterday morning there is ~6 in of new snow on the trail. Not enough for skiing, obviously, but the hiking is easy and pretty until the hut. Thereafter there is definitely a lot for skiing, cramponing, etc. There were winter conditions in the trees below the S ridge on W side of bowl... mid April powder skiing in socal! I love this place. Skinned from hut to ridge just below chutes then started descent because we had to be back for afternoon classes and didn't have skin wax to treat the 30 lbs of snow that accumulated on each of my skins.
I'm not an avalanche expert by any means, but yesterday the new layer of snow was very unstable on western part of bowl and especially on the E face of the S ridge... skin track + 3 pole basket holes were enough to detach a cohesive slab ~6 in thick (low in bowl). Slab higher is probably thicker higher up because of west winds from last storm. Would exercise caution for a couple more days... we skied the trees for this reason. The same snow will be a prime candidate for skier/hiker-triggered point-releases as the sun has its way. I wouldn't expect the slab to stick around in the sun beyond today, but as a recent observation posted to esac.org shows, wet slides can be serious business--if not for the trigger, then for the people below.
Ominous avalanche reports aside, what an AMAZING way to spend the morning before school! Seriously, the federal government should levy an "awesome place" tax on us to make it up to the poor souls of the Midwest.
