April 30, 2005, MRNP - Edith Creek

Pulled into a rather empty Paradise lot by 9:30am.  Pretty dense fog but not the death fog.  By 10 John and I were skinning.  A decision was made to follow the visibility towards Edith Creek.  Bridge is void of snow but plenty of places to cross above.  Overall coverage in the basin is still adequate.  Snow conditions for skinning was so so.  Didn't stick to the skins but didn't get that killer glide neither.  As I gandered I noticed some recent minor slide activity on east, south, and west facing slopes.

I took one more long look before deciding that Golden Gate looked ripe.  Snow was perfect for traversing.  Once on top I dug a quick pit at 6,400ft on mellow west facing slope.  Found 2-4'' of wet fresh atop of 8-10'' layer of rain soaked graup on top of a thick consolidating snow layer.  Only dug down a few feet so the last layer went deeper.  Could only get top few inches to move.  Overall a pretty bomber snow pack here.  Now we just need a freak storm.

We took our line thru an opening.  Snow was great on the steepiest sections.  Once the slope petered out so did the snow.  Really sticky-icky.  Didn't waste anytime getting back onto our skin track and cruising back to the car.