March 21, 2009, Tatoosh

Suprisingly decent day up in the Castle basin today. Brenda and I arrived around 10:00 am to an empty parking lot at Narada, and dust on about an inch of breakable crust over very soft 2.5 ft underneath. We crossed Narada face on the road above and it was kind of scary. Hard crust that I could barely drive a ski edge. Definitely didn't want to fall. Thinking maybe this would only be a tour day we nearly headed up Mazama Ridge for a long trail and road loop, but decided to at least climb up and check out the conditions at the bottom of the bowl. Things really improved up high. Crust began to weaken and there was a little more dust and the powder underneath was much denser. We got first tracks in the sun. Except for one other couple, we had the place to ourselves. We did several laps as the weather changed to a full on dumping by late afternoon. We were in no hurry to leave as we figured the few inches of powder that was falling would improve conditions a bit down in the more treed areas. Indeed it did. The crust was actually fun. We bypassed Narada face and crossed the saddle on the return trip. The glades below the saddle also skied well. Didn't get back to the car until after 6:00 PM. Man I love daylight savings time in March.