Jan 29-30, 2009, Sasse Ridge

Jane and I went up to our usual spot on Sasse Ridge this Thursday - Friday for another mellow ski camping trip. The turns were nothing to write home about, but they were better than I expected. I've been interpreting my snowpack model with a grain of salt because of some issues with the precip sensor data. It can fluctuate up and down at times, and this can get counted as new snow. In that the precip values are based on an accumulator, in theory values should never go down. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a modest amount of new; perhaps 4 to 6 inches at 3800 feet.  There was more snow higher up, but there was a lot of wind transport, so the depth would be hard to estimate.

Thursday was very pleasant. It cleared off in the late afternoon, and the stars were out when it got dark. See the first pic, compliments of Jane.

The rainfly on my tent is somewhat unusual by the way. Not just the old fashion shape, which really does work like an A frame, but the fact that it's made of 0.4 ounce polyester spinnaker cloth. Polyester does not shrink as much with heat as does nylon (and vise versa), and it does not stretch as much when it gets wet, so as it gets colder at night, and or wetter, the fly gets tighter with respect to the underlying tent. This keeps the snow sliding off without much intervention.  I suspect the reason that resin coated polyester is not used more for tents is the same reason it's not commonly used for  spinnakers. Polyester stretches less, and therefore is not good at absorbing shocks, like when a spinnaker collapses and then refills. (Poof! $$$, spinnaker in shreds.) I solved this issue by making my fly using borrowed sail making methods, corner reinforcements made with Tri-laminate sail material, silicone tubing shock absorbers on the guy lines, sticky-back reinforcement where needed, etc. 

Oh, sorry, got off in gear-head mode. 

On Friday we started off at 6 in the morning with the stars shining brightly. Once we got up a ways and it got light the view was quite nice. See the second pic from maybe half way up the 'frontside'. We were feeling lazy (at least I was) so we only went to the high point above the 'upper bowl' at 5500'. See the third photo.  We found just a bit of everything on the way down; a few spots with maybe 8 inches softer snow (nice) but also crust, wind blown surfaces, and who knows what. Average backcountry now that I think of it. The trick was to find places that had not had any sun, and if we were lucky, were also in the lee of some sort of obstruction during the last snowfall(s).

But this year particularly, I'm finding that getting those perfect turns in perfect conditions is not as important as it had been. Just being there seems to be enough for me now. I suppose personal losses have a way of making you realize what's really important.

Larry