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Niiiiiiice!!!

Red Lake Peak is in great condition. Skintracks are in from below and from CP. Some windslabbage up high in the entranceways, but nothing observed moving in the runs. A small natural or two visible on south facing terrain terrain towards Stephens.

Rode a couple laps around Silver Peak north of Squaw on Thanksgiving. Great snow on all the east and north east facing aspects. South aspects are starting to get sun affected and many of the ridges with any west or southwest exposure are completely scoured of snow from the wind. But some pretty amazing coverage for November, and it looks like the cold temps will allow the north and north east exposures to stay good for quite a while to come.

Here's my buddy topping out.

Did a couple of laps on Incline Lake Peak yesterday...obvioulsy lots of snow for November but Mt. Rose didn't get as much as the West Shore so there is still a fair amount of boulders, shrubs, etc. Looks like more pow in the forecast for the weekend. Plan to get out at least once...

Awesome turns off Carson Pass on Friday. Zero cars in the roundtop parking lot at 9AM. WTF?!? Nice having the place to ourselves though.


First turns of the season... pretty nice!


Powderjunkie goes:




Ecobrad:




It was a very nice start to the season. We found heaps and heaps of blower on the west shore on Saturday but I left me camera in the pack because of the storm.

Good day on Bliss today. Ran into Jeremy Jones and Ryland Bell on top. Good to see the heavy hitters out and about.

Good write up about Red Lake Peak avi(s) on the SAC site.

http://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org/node/732


The SAC site has a much larger/better quality version of this pic and also a crown profile. It's worth reading.

Tallac was flawless today. Shit got warm. All pow on non north aspects is done.
My buddy Paul and I dropped North Bowl on the lookers right side. It's still bony off the peak. Then hit right arm of Cross and slayed perfect pow all the way to willow flats. Only tracks on that side.....

Only point and shoot photos again (wish i brought helmet cam)




Looking up at Main Cross. Only caught a glimpse of baby cham exit as I was maching by. Still a little ice bulge and a few rocks but shouldn't take much to fill in choke.

You Sierra and PNW guys sure do have some beautiful tree runs to hit. I was trying edumacate myself on how your snowpack sets up so I'm not completely in the dark if I ever make it over there, but I had a hard time interpreting the SAC sites write up on the recent accident. First off what's a dry slab (soft slab?), second what did they determine that slid on (sun crust, facets, couldn't find that on the report) and has that shit settled if so how long did it take to set-up. Just curious and not very familiar with how SAC does things. Thanks in advance, looking good out there.

There are some great tree runs out here, but I wish we had more aspen runs.

I believe the accident occurred within new storm snow just above the older snow. The snow profile shows the problematic layer being about 26cms down, with some graupel visible at that point. The advisory the morning of the accident also mentioned concerns with upside down issues in the storm snow (it started off cold and then warmed up a bit).

Over the previous week we had received maybe four feet of snow and the day previous to the accident we received another foot. I don't think there was a sun crust or pronounced facet layer that contributed to this slide. That was a NE slope which probably doesn't get any sun this time of year. I haven't read about or noticed any near surface faceting that occurred in the short break before Saturday's storm.

Positive vibes for the injured skier.

Thanks for posting that, David!

Hey UTAH,

We have nothing like the resources you guys have for avy forcasting. Just two guys over a really big area and not so many observers. Luckily it's usually a stable snowpack but of course not always. I observed graupel falling during the saturday storm, but prolly 20 miles from that accident. It seems like those types of things, maybe localized dangers that slip past the forecasters because the area is so big, are what catch us up. Last year for example we saw a little streak of accidents during a 'moderate' forcast because of a grauple layer in some places that wasn't noticed until things started sliding. We can get lazy out here because things *usually* are bomber a day or two after a storm.

I think the lesson learned (but not by the snowboarders mentioned in the right up) is to stay off slopes like that when there's not a solid base.

We were in the area the day before the new storm and all the non-treed faces looked SKETCHY. This is a photo by Buffy of the summit couloir on Mt. Stevens, which has the same aspect of the slide, but one ridgeline over. The slide was several hundred feet lower in elevation than the top of Steven's but the slide area did get scoured, just like Steven's. I bet that slide area on Red Lake looked like the photo before the 6-8". Not a good surface to bond to. Whereas the protected trees near the Lake had a consolidated 5-8' base for the snow to settle upon. It was a little slabby at the very top of Jakes and then huge fresh on top of set-up pow the whole way down.

Hope the guy is healing well.