Dec 29, 2019, Blewett 12/29/19

With this weeks snow coming, I went road skiing up Kings Ridge this afternoon to see what was up. The bottom 600' sucked, with 3 layers of crust, rained on bumpy snow, and frozen snow shoe tracks...No big surprise...But once I got up a ways, life got better...Still road skinning, and no large amount of snow (6" - 14") more dependent on aspect and tree cover than elevation. By 3,000' there was a solid crust over 2" thick and 1-2" of new snow. I knew that at least the road skiing would be nice. But extreme sun aspects cut the snow down to 4" in spots! Road cuts were bare all over, and ridge lines were rocks. Closer to 3'600' sheltered trees filled in some, and I scoped out a couple hundred feet
Of off road skiing! My high point of 3,900' had 14" of snow in sheltered areas that were north facing. Too late, and still hard to ski...but with a few inches of powder - it could be good! The road and little off road skied great in the twilight, and the bottom demanded expert snow plowing...Fun afternoon!