March 27, 2010, Arrowhead/Jim Hill environs

Had plans to ski Jim Hill, but ended up getting some turns on Arrowhead instead.     

Approached Jim Hill via the spur road that is east and above Henry Creek, but once the road ended we found extremely icy and rough skinning conditions in the trees...the steepness of the traverse combined with some of us not having ski crampons and those of us with 'poons watching them flex and blend while trying to cut into the ice caused us to re-evaluate our destination and shuffle back down the road towards Arrowhead instead.    Looks like others had been to Jim Hill a day or two before, perhaps more talents skinners than us or maybe conditions had been slightly softer for them. Boot crampons might be a worthwhile piece of hardware to bring for the Henry Creek approach unless we get some more snow.

We got back over to the road that leads towards the upper clearcut on Arrowhead and topped out around 2pm.   The high cloud cover probably helped keep the NW side from getting overcooked and we had surprisingly good skiing from the top finding cornish conditions in the sun and the occational patch of boot-deep powder in the shade. 

Coverage is getting thin enough in the lower cleacut, that we mostly just stuck to the road once below about 4000ft.