February 12, 2005, Silver Basin + LOST: poles

The LOST: part. Major brain malfunction in the Crystal lot as leaving apparently caused me to leave my Leki Extreme poles just lying there on the ground as we drove away. If you happened to have been therein the lot and grabbed em pm me or mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Otherwise o well. Had em a long time, old friends. They're the kind that are always coming loose but I still liked em.
The skiing part. Skinning up quicksilver was dubious but possible. Once past the lift top it was all good. Well mostly good. There were still several crunchy granite surprises in various places. We did one run off a col to E of Threeway, then a run off the King, and then another run off that Threeway col. The Threeway runs were N facing and in spots the powder remarkably well preserved. The King run was probably ill advised, good adventure but only about half of the run into basin again had good snow rest sun affected. Dug quick pit on 35 degree N facing that seemed to have some wind slab effect. 2 inches fresh, 8 inches of sorta consolidated with crust, 2 feet heavy icy snow, then X of really abused looking crap at the bottom that wasn't going anywhere. Compression test nothing. Shear test, the 2 inches went easy, the 8 inches went 2-wrist, but this only when unsupported. Similar results w block, 2 inches slid away on approach, the 8 inches after 2nd jump. Nothing that was terribly concerning.
Intermittent between sun and heavy snow with snow as leaving. Rocks were hit. I took another dubious line down Quicksilver, apparently mesmerized by the 2 inches of freshies over the bare ground, striking it soundly several times. They're rock skis alright but this season might render them unusable after all this is done with.

Andru's "europose" below the most actively skied slope in Silver