December 2, 2012, slopes of White Chuck

We decided to head to White Chuck to get some low-angle tree skiing while the storm snow settled.  We took our chained-up SUV as far as it could go on the forest service road, which left about an hour of skinning to the summer trailhead.  Another hour of skinning along a narrow, wooded ridge took us to some more open slopes beneath the summit massif. 
We dropped a little cornice, which set off a 30' wide, 5" deep slab.  Low-angle terrain for the day, then.  We found that same 5", incredibly reactive layer on all aspects, with cracks propagating as much as 70' and a couple remote releases, one more than 40' wide.  The lower snowpack never budged, though.  These observations were all from about 5000-6000'.  Here's hoping this layer stabilizes before too much more snow falls on it.
We had fun slogging up and down through heavy powder, all the while getting slowly sodden by the wet falling snow.  We were back at the road around dark, leaving maybe 20 minutes of headlamp skiing back to our car.  During the day about 3" had fallen on our car parked at 4400'. 
Always good to be out, and the views were inspiring even if the skiing wasn't.