May 12, 2018, Lichtenberg Mountain

We approached Lichtenwasser Lake from the north, branching off from Smithbrook Road at the third hairpin, around 4000 feet. Smithbrook Road is still completely snow covered. Crossing the actual Smith Brook at 4000 feet was relatively easy - there were still a fair number of intact snow bridges in this area (not the case at lower elevations, see details below). We ended up only making it to Lichtenwasser Lake, rather than up towards Lichtenberg Mountain itself, due to time, but we got a good look at the area. There are very large cornices on the NE facing ridge spanning south from the Lichtenberg summit (see photo). There had been at least one recent large cornice fall and subsequent avalanche.

We were able to cross the outlet of Lichtenwasser at the north side of the lake, but there was only one intact snow bridge (see photo) and it will probably be gone soon. We skied down east of the outlet stream... which was not particularly fun skiing. The small sun cups were covered in impressive amounts of lichen, which made the steeper slopes tricky. I would not really recommend it at this time of year!

The real crux of the day was crossing back over Smith Brook. On the way up the road we had scoped out how things looked for crossing, and did not see any snow bridges south of where the brook and the Lichtenwasser outlet meet. However, we had seen three downed logs that might allow us to cross. After we skied down from Lichtenwasser, we picked the least hazardous looking log to cross, around 3600 feet.

Despite sub-optimal skiing, still a beautiful day to be outside!