December 11, 2005, BOX RIDGE AREA

Rode sleds from Hyak Sunday morning to Box Ridge (East of Alta Mountain), which is accessed by the Gold Creek--Mount Margaret snowmobile trail system. Four of us ran a shuttle system with 2 sleds. What a dramatic range of conditions--started out on a Southwest slope that went from bullet-proof to breakable crust to very small sections of dry soft powder in the trees. Moved over to a sunny South slope that was nice and soft but turned to glop by 11. From there we drove back over by the Kecheelus radio towers, where there is a steep, gladed, pure North facing slope with a C-shaped "snowmobile interstate" for 2 minute access. Here we found the goods--very dry, preserved, knee deep powder, and probably a 800-900 ft drop down even fall line. We ran as many laps as we could. It was very, very good. Inversions are funny. North facing aside, it was a much lower elevation slope than up on Box Ridge, and the temp was roughly 15-20 degrees lower.