December 16, 2011, Chair Mt. Circumnav

Three of us skied the Chair Mt. Circumnav.  From Source Lake, we booted up the Bryant Coulior (or whatever is between Chair and Bryant mtns), where we found mostly shallow slop over a bootable crust.  Fairly easy booting, even breaking trail.  Good stability, with nothing above the crust sticking together or propagating. 
We skied down to Melakwa lake on shallow heavy snow over crust.  It actually skied pretty well at times. 
We left the Melakwa lake basin 100 yards climbers left of Melakwa pass, earning a fun, steep drop in with decently light snow for our troubles.  On this slope, the new 3" or so of snow would separate on a fairly smooth fracture (Q2?), but cohered in slabs weakly.  Subjected to skiing, the slope showed no instability.  Lower down (maybe 1000' above Snow Lake), the snow became deep and extremely heavy, not very pleasant. 
We scootched across Snow Lake and regained the saddle above Source Lake on well established skin tracks through more shallow heavy snow.  The ski down wasn't unpleasant - the hard layer under the new snow was a little bumpy from old frozen ski tracks, but not quite heinous. 
Overall: a few wet inches over a bootable and carveable crust.  Easy skinning, good stability, and very Northwest-y skiing. 
The route: http://www.hillmap.com/m/agtzbG9wZW1hcHBlcnIQCxIIU2F2ZWRNYXAY47YNDA