Dec 31-Jan 1, 2010, Sasse Ridge

Jane and I got our first good turns of the season New Year's Day, above our usual campsite on Sasse Ridge. We skied in the morning of  New Year's Eve, just ahead of the snow. By evening we had 8 inches of rather heavy new snow, ending in the predicted freezing rain. See the pic.

By next morning there was a modest rain crust at the campsite, but we decided that it was worth exploring up above. We started out with headlights at about 6:30,  and shortly thereafter, on a quite gentle slope we started seeing quite impressive 'shooting cracks', which I later decided would better be described as settlement cracks. See the pic. We were not planning to leave the trees, but we became quite cautious, ski cutting road embankments, etc. as we went up.  Interestingly enough, the settlement cracks occurred primarily on very gentle terrain, not on the steeper portions. My guess is that the settling had already occurred there. In the areas we checked, we could not get anything to really slide, but we did not want to chance the frontside, so we took the spur road at about 4400' elv. to one of our favorite tree skiing sections. The skiing was surprisingly good, although by 4200 feet the rain crust made the 'Northwest powder' even a bit more heavy.  See the pic.  By the way, we both *love* our Trab Duo Freerando Lights for this sort of skiing.

Larry