March 27, 2010, Snow Lake Plus

Took a tour up to Snow Lake and beyond yesterday.  Quick trip out to Source Lake and then up put us on the bench as the sun came out.  Could see some fracture lines on the south facing slopes of Chair Peak.  Headed over the ridgelet on the north side of the bench and down to the lake via the big gully.  Took off across the lake and hit a SW facing slope above the two little lakes east of Snow Lake.  Got up to about 4900 ft and called it good.  This was about 1pm and it was getting warm.  Dug a quick pit.  30cm of new snow on top of a larger layer that looked (to my inexperienced eye) pretty homogenous.  No failure on CT up to 30 (but my hand hurt), however that new snow layer sheared right off with a Q1 and very little effort.   Slope seemed pretty stable as it had no rollovers and all the way up we hadn't seem much reaction to the trail breaking.  Skied it and it was great.  No instability just nice cooperative snow.  Down towards the little lakes in the shade the snow lightened up.  Climbed back to the divide and took the standard route out.  Good companions and great weather.

Lots of good snow on the north side of the divide and even climbing out we didn't run into stability problems.

Some pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chuckcphotos/sets/72157623596204137/