April 4, 2012, - Baker BC: Stoneman plus a few more

Took advantage of a clearing spell between the morning clouds and the afternoon clouds to sneak in a few runs around Herman with John and Jenny.

Nice and cool with low clouds in the AM. Clouds started to break up at 930 and relatively clear but still cool. Thin clouds moved in and started greenhousing everything about 1100. Snow surface above 4500'-5000' on N'ly aspects stayed good I'm guessing, but even N'ly lower than ~4500' got cooked, I think.

~4" on S'ly aspects over a kinder than expected crust. A little more in drifted N'ly terrain over a soft and stable base (yeah, I know there's facets on a crust 12' down or so - I think it's going to take more than a little PM heating or the weight of a single skier to make that layer a player).

Took the backdoor from Mazama Bowl to approach Stoneman. The couloir skied well - only sluff was what you kicked off with skis (i.e. not entraining more snow to give the sluff more punch).  Very manageable. Skied it and out of there by 1100 which was plenty reasonable with the cool AM temps.

Things got more intersting on the run down to the creek. Many intentionally skier triggered wet loose on >40deg rolls. All <D2 but a ride would work the unwary. Would stick to higher elevation terrain for the egress next time.