December 6, 2003,Mt. Catherine

Skinned up to the top of Hyak on a groomed track for a bit, and then the skin track that some friends laid down on Thursday.  No problems there.  Then I tried to ski down to the powerline and traverse over to the (ungroomed) nordic track.  No turning allowed!  A nice stiff upper crust was in place about 8" above the rain crust and my skis were getting caught between the two.  After crossing the stream and heading into the woods I was already pooped due to the difficult skinning in such snow.  It was like rockette skinning - step, glide, flick, step, glide, etc.  Anyway, skinning in the woods was much better and when I got above 3500' the upper crust was much weaker. The snow below it (yet above the rain crust) was drier and sort of silky feeling.  I stopped in a lovely glade I remembered from last spring (around 4,500' to 4,000') and did 6 laps.  For practice I dug 2 pits. In the first I did a shovel shear - couldn't get any layers to move, so I picked up the entire column (all the way to the ground) and finally got it to break at the aprox 10" deep rain crust.  In the other pit an R-block failed at this crust after 3 large jumps.  Bonds above and below both crusts seemed fairly strong to the touch too.  Lots of terrain anchoring still in the woods, and more snow would make this tour more enjoyable due to the number of small pines and ski stopping brush/downed logs I noticed.  The glade I was in was wonderful though, only a few bits of brush every now and again amongst the giant trees.  After my laps I headed down to what I think is Frog Lake, then out to the top of Hyak.  Skiied below the chair and back to the car on interesting snow with a now even stronger upper crust.  Sledders and jibbers were having fun on that slope too.  Great day, almost 6000' total up and down according to the altimeter and not a soul in sight until I got back to Hyak.