11/23 Tilly Jane

Went up to Tilly Jane yesterday to enjoy the good weather and, occasionally, good snow. The skin track up from the ski area parking lot is almost completely filled in with only a couple of easy stream crossings that didn't even require taking the skis off for. The only other tracks from the A-frame were cross-country skiers headed for Cloud cap, so I broke trail straight up towards the stone hut. Ate lunch there then felt compelled to head up to Tie-in-rock, mostly for the views and hoping to get some actually steep skiing in. It was not to be though, as the snow up there had all been blown away or into a hard crust from the wind over the last few days, up to 100mph according to a guy I ran into. Lots of cool looking sculptures, but not the best skiing. Things improved once I got back down to treeline and I got some great turns in the trees and gullies there. If I were going again, I'd probably just make a couple of laps between the A-frame and the stone hut. Had some excitement at the end when my car got stuck in the snow, but a little rocking got me out.

The skin trail on the way up. There are a bunch of signs telling you to stay on the trail to protect the burn area. Seems a bit silly with snow on the ground, not sure how you'd hurt it by skiing through.

A nice little valley just below the stone hut.

Note the sun and blue sky.

Yeah, it didn't last. Clouds and just a few flakes of snow convinced me to hurry up and head down.

Looking down as I started my run. The rock patches aren't a problem since there's plenty of space to go around, the problem is that the snow itself was rock-hard.