06 Mar 2011, - Damn near full moon tour - Phantom

Nice, R! You keep pushing the dawn patrols up earlier and earlier.  :D

Beautiful!  Now that's a great idea.  I love the view back down to the pass.

Did you come back so late that it was already today? (Wed, Mar 7), or did you come back from the future to show us what conditions will be like if we go there tonight?!  Or, did you finally get around to posting this from a year ago?

If you're from the future thanks for the heads up and I'd like to propose a business idea or 12.  :)

That was this morning!!!  I struggled a bit getting up the waterfall trees and Rob bailed on the waterfall so that added a fair bit of time to the trip.  Leisurely and COLD at 12F up top, 18F in the lot.

Shucks, I was really hoping you'd invented time travel so I could go back and repeat yesterday's face shots.

Nice trip though, I've always wanted to ski under a full moon!

One of my favorite runs under full moon! Rad. It's a shame I was working late.

Nice! Thanks for the call....i was gassed from a long bike ride. Glad the tradition continues.

The other two skiers was the mystery of the night.  A "source" informed us there was a party headed for the Slot; we looked forward to seeing them come out to hear about it.  We discovered they turned where we did (about 6,000').  They somehow passed us in the night without a sound.  Even the ski patrollers we chatted with in the parking lot had not seen them.  Maybe that is why they call it the Phantom...  There were a couple of headlamps heading down from Source Lake after 10pm as well.

Truly - I enjoyed looking over and see Haggis's beard covered in white powder every time we stopped to congratulate each other for such a brilliant idea!

The crust below became most apparant once we got well over 5,000 feet.  Bond was good, but you could start to blow it out (with some effort) on turns.  Sun crust was significant below 4,000 feet, but non-existent a short ways above.

author=Jonn-E link=topic=24041.msg101646#msg101646 date=1331141462]
Did you come back so late that it was already today? (Wed, Mar 7), or did you come back from the future to show us what conditions will be like if we go there tonight?!  Or, did you finally get around to posting this from a year ago?

If you're from the future thanks for the heads up and I'd like to propose a business idea or 12.  :)

author=haggis link=topic=24041.msg101647#msg101647 date=1331142117]
That was this morning!!!  I struggled a bit getting up the waterfall trees and Rob bailed on the waterfall so that added a fair bit of time to the trip.  Leisurely and COLD at 12F up top, 18F in the lot.

It appears that Jonn-E was trying to suggest to you that the date of this TR be corrected to 06 Mar 2012 (or perhaps 06-07 Mar 2012 if you got back down after midnight). You can select "Modify" and edit the subject line.

The "mystery skiers" were in fact headed for the Slot, but skied back down the Phantom instead due to stability concerns. They were picked up by their companions (who had skied several runs of moonlight powder elsewhere in the vicinity) at the parking lot a little after 11pm on 06Mar2012.

Correct on the date but it was completed "just" on the 07th.  The ironic part of the turnaround point was that we decided with stability concerns to turnaround.  "Lets go to that nice stand of trees over there and transition".  Got there and the other party had done the same after we had been waiting to see headlamps on the slot climbout shoulder.  We obviously all had similar concerns with the rain crust which became apparant pretty quickly above 5k or so.

If we had got there a bit earlier we would have taken a few laps on that top section, it was delish indeed.

Maybe northern lights tonight from the solar flare on Tuesday. How cool would that be?

so the two guys that did the slot, did you guys boot down? we saw boot tracks but no ski marks at the top but came across ski tracks at the bottom?

author=Cornfed link=topic=24041.msg101653#msg101653 date=1331151679]
  There were a couple of headlamps heading down from Source Lake after 10pm as well.

The source lake head lamps were my partner and I.  It was more of a snow shoe tour but, brought our boards to take advantage of gravity were could.  Made a couple turns from lunchbox rock down the lake.  Great snow.  8 inches on top of a soft crust.  It is probably cooked after today though.  Back to the car at 11 and had many yawns on the way home.  What a beutiful night!  My night time photos were not quite as clear.  Maybe I need more practice :)

author=kevino link=topic=24041.msg101702#msg101702 date=1331261923]
so the two guys that did the slot, did you guys boot down? we saw boot tracks but no ski marks at the top but came across ski tracks at the bottom?

Yes, we walked down to the dog leg because the top portion was wind scoured down to hard crust.  Just below that we carefully avoided an obvious wind slab, then made wonderful turns down through soft snow to the valley.  The exit notch was similar - soft, unconsolidated snow on the crust most of the way, and hard wind scoured crust near the top that we booted up.  Beautiful morning out!

Sick Roo!

Did you need to use your mega lamp, or was it bright benough without?

Mega lamp was in use but only so Rob and I could see each other on the way down.  Certainly didn't need it out in the open.

author=ski_photomatt link=topic=24041.msg101712#msg101712 date=1331272215]
Yes, we walked down to the dog leg because the top portion was wind scoured down to hard crust.  Just below that we carefully avoided an obvious wind slab, then made wonderful turns down through soft snow to the valley.  The exit notch was similar - soft, unconsolidated snow on the crust most of the way, and hard wind scoured crust near the top that we booted up.  Beautiful morning out!

right on. thats what we figured. we skied the crooked and has similar conditions, still in very good shape considering the variable snow.