A Ski Lake tour

Yesterday afternoon Eric, Jill and I went for a short ski tour to Ski Lake. The snowpack is still too shallow -- 26" at 9300' --  for me to want to do any turns. You can see the weeds sticking up through the snow in the picture, the snowpack here at 8700' was maybe 12-16" on the south-facing slopes, with many bare spots remaining.

Jenny Lake flat, again

Nothing much has changed snow-wise in the past week. I did another tour into Jenny Lake yesterday. The lake looks to have frozen over completely. There were some ice-skater tracks in the snow on the lake at the very south end.

Jenny Lake flat

We haven't had any significant new snow in the past week. I went for a sunny afternoon tour into Jenny Lake from the Taggart parking lot. The touring conditions were fine; there was an existing track, and the snow conditions were soft enough that making your own track was easy enough. I was expecting a very firm base, but was pleasantly surprised. Jenny Lake still has about 20% open water.

First ski tour of the season

Wow, December 1st already and I have yet to get out on skis. The 28" snowpack might have something to do with that. It's a bluebird day, and the winds have calmed down after yesterday's storm system moved through.

I went for a fishscale tour up Phillips Ridge to the crest at the antenna towers. Conditions were 1-2" of new snow on top of a firm base, except for the places where the base wasn't firm, like collapsing through tall bunches of grass or shrubs. There were a few other tracks; looking up higher on the Pass towards Glory Peak the mountain was practically skied out. Still lots of stumps and rocks poking up through the snow. In the picture, the tails of my skis are on the ground, so figure about 24" depth.