I left LA at 2:00am this morning (in retrospect about an hour too early) and got the first lift up Stump Alley. They reported about 2 inches overnight and it was snowing fairly hard all day. Surprisingly, it didn't really accumulate much (about 4 inches fell during the day). My first run was on Roger's, and although the overnight snow did make a difference, I bottomed out on every turn. Next, I went up Chair 3 and was surprised to hear the patroller say they were going to open the backside soon. There was obviously no hope of the top opening due to visibility, but avy-wise, everything was pretty stable after yesterday's bombing.
It was just me and three snowboarders waiting for the rope drop, so needless to say, I was the first person off the back. This was not a good thing. I tried to set the high traverse that goes all the way out to the Paranoids, but visibility was so bad that I didn't know where I was going. This was true white-out. I could barely see my ski tips and I couldn't distinguish up from down. I think I ended up skiing down through Cornice. It was untracked and I never hit bottom, but I'd say it skied like a bottomless 4". From there, I went to the trees skier's right of St. Anton, which were untracked and skied deeper.
My next time up (and all future runs), I was somewhat able to follow a traverse line out to the Paranoids and White Bark Bowl. I skied 9 runs in that area and never crossed a single track. At the bottom of the bowl, I found a short tree line that basically offered 4 face shots and then a traverse out. The snow farther out was definitely deeper. The lower Paranoids had a slight wind ripple effect, but everything was still quite smooth and soft. The lower tree area was about 2 feet deep and light.
I got 10 untracked laps and I could have skied untracked for the rest of the day, but the white out made me so sick that I had to quit around 1:00. It was really disappointing since this is the slowest I've ever seen part of the top tracked out, but the conditions were just unbearable.
It was just me and three snowboarders waiting for the rope drop, so needless to say, I was the first person off the back. This was not a good thing. I tried to set the high traverse that goes all the way out to the Paranoids, but visibility was so bad that I didn't know where I was going. This was true white-out. I could barely see my ski tips and I couldn't distinguish up from down. I think I ended up skiing down through Cornice. It was untracked and I never hit bottom, but I'd say it skied like a bottomless 4". From there, I went to the trees skier's right of St. Anton, which were untracked and skied deeper.
My next time up (and all future runs), I was somewhat able to follow a traverse line out to the Paranoids and White Bark Bowl. I skied 9 runs in that area and never crossed a single track. At the bottom of the bowl, I found a short tree line that basically offered 4 face shots and then a traverse out. The snow farther out was definitely deeper. The lower Paranoids had a slight wind ripple effect, but everything was still quite smooth and soft. The lower tree area was about 2 feet deep and light.
I got 10 untracked laps and I could have skied untracked for the rest of the day, but the white out made me so sick that I had to quit around 1:00. It was really disappointing since this is the slowest I've ever seen part of the top tracked out, but the conditions were just unbearable.
