May 21, 2009, Silver Basin

Skinned up to Silver Basin today in my newly purchased used Scarpa Matrix AT boots in my Baron bindings to try them out. Planned on skiing Threeway.

The snow seemed great as I headed up at around 10:45. A couple of inches of granulated snow on top of a firm crust. But as I approached the head of the basin the snow became breakable crust with granulated snow underneath varying from a copuple of inches to a couple of feet.

I almost made the east ridge for Threeway but the snow started sliding and was decidedly unstable and I couldn't touch bottom with my pole. I turned around and headed to the exit chute but experienced the same. Decided to ski down and was surprised after a couple great turns  how good it seemed so I ate some lunch and then headed up to the top of the large knoll under the ridge (old glacial moraine?) expecting some fine skiing.

I was disappointed. The skiing was unpleasant. Breakable crust with sticky snow. Lower it was just sticky and really heavy. Mostly straight lining. Took Boondoggle on the way out and finally got about 5 good turns in.

Great day in the mountains but crumby snow for skiing,