Jan 26, 2019, Jim Hill Mountain
1/26/19
1508
3
I organized a group to ascend and ski down on Henry Creek bowl of Jim Hill. We intended to start early, but you know how big group get. We traveled along the west side of the creek, easily navigating in thick forest. We saw other ski tracks once we popped out of forest at 3800'. We continued along west side of the bowl. There were small slides along the way from steeper, sun-exposed, east-facing releases. As we reached 6000', we did compression test to assess snow and found 3" layer of powder, followed by 80 cm layer of compacted, uniform snow, followed by ~8 cm layer of icy, but well compacted granules, and followed by compacted, uniform snow deeper. We found this to be safe and proceed to climb to the ridge, just below the peak. This is where we turned around because we were running out of daylight. First 1500' of descent were great powder condition, followed by firm powder, quickly changing to wet snow that was hard to ski. At 3800' we crossed to the east side of Henry Creek and descended following tracks of previous skiers coming down from east side of the bowl.
Few more pics
Where'd you park? I read that DOT has posted no parking now at any of the roadside options and that to avoid towing risk you need to walk the highway from the Nordic center. What did you see there?
We parked in area west of the gate, as labeled "park here" by NH-S in this thread We looked for signs in that area and did not find any. That area starts out wide enough to park cars perpendicular to US 2. I took into consideration precipitation forecast and whether we would impede snow plowing. When we were walking away from cars in the morning, plower went by, but i though they must be spraying sand or salt. I have to admit that I was worried our three cars would not be there when we came back. As were walking out and already on US 2, a tow truck was making U-turn in the wider section of the pullout :) Maybe the truck was after our cars and saw us walking, or maybe just making a u-wee. It would not have been an easy pick, since we parked cars at angle, to make more room for other cars. For complete peace of mind, Nordic Center lot is 5 minutes away. Also, there is access road entrance on north side of US 2 another hundred yards westbound. I have parked there before too.
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