The past week, with it’s variable precipitation and sunshine, had completely resurfaced the entire upper mountain.  The lower mountain did not benefit from the variations, but the those who showed up early were treated to some true back country quality corn goodness.  The East facing was ready to go for the first arrivals out in Mineral Basin, where the crust held up for the first hour and a half, after which the crust started to break and sent me looking toward the North faces to see if that had become supportable during the week.  The High North had certainly smoothed out and was looking sweet, but the supportability was very sketchy, requiring your best smooze technique to keep from busting through. I moved back to the front of the hill to take advantage of the Peruvian side. The  softening there

PERFECT CORN

ULTRA FAT

was occurring at 10:00 AM., offering very velvety Groomers and tender, though supportable, off trail.  The Lower Mountain got soft quite quickly, and the off trail was particularly cut up from the week before.  The West facing was the last to go, so staying up high on the Little Cloud chair extended the day, with some very nice shots off Regulator.  Tomorrow look for the corn surfaces to have refrozen, especially since today was a touch on the brisk side.  The forecast is for more precipitation through the weekend, so there may be some fresh essence to work with.  Memorize your favorite lines, so that when the visibility gets sketchy you have the mental image to work from.  Here is a shot of Mineral Basin looking back country smooth, and one of the Upper Cirque.  Check out shot 8.  Have you ever seen it that wide?!! I haven’t.   See  you tomorrow!!   IBBY!!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 27th, 2011 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Snow Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.