Sasse Ridge, November 16-17, 2006

What a difference a week makes! An inch of snow at my campsite ~6000' in Esmeralda basin last week when I arrived, and 2 or 3 inches overnight. No accumulation at the trailhead. This week I thought I would ski up to the clinic to check things out. The Sasse Ridge Medical Clinic that is. The only clinic on Sasse Ridge where no problem is too small (the smaller the better in fact) and where the doctor is always out.  :D

Fortunately, the main road washout is just beyond Rd 4315, but the road is closed a quarter mile from the parking area. Six to eight inches snow there, increasing to 16 inches at the parking lot overlook  at 3000'.  There was a modestly unpleasant crust (by comparison - see below)  all the way to my campsite, which ameliorated some by the next day. It was quite warm Thursday afternoon, very pleasant. The stargazing  in the evening was exceptional. The fine structure of the Milky Way was as clearly visible as I've seen it. (Check out the darksky.org website.)

I got up at my usual time for winter, prepped the skis and headed up at 6:20 am on a still unpleasant crust. About 2 feet of snow at the Snotel site, which is what the depth sensor is reporting. Note: the temp sensor and the snow pillow sensor are out. The Washington Snow Survey office hopes to have them fixed by next week. There was enough snow to skin up the frontside, but not enough coverage to ski down. If you want to ski this slope early in the season, beware of the numerous large stumps many of which have big air pockets on the downhill side.

Above the 4600' road bend, the crust became increasingly nasty. By the upper bowl on the far side of the ridge it consisted of an eighth inch of solid water ice on top and a half inch of frozen rain saturated snow adherent to the bottom of the crust. Below that was 2 or 3 feet of very light density snow, which in some cases had settled away from the crust. By 5460'+ the crust was still getting worse so I stopped there. Going up wasn't too bad, although the crust would break off in yard square pieces.

Going down was another matter.  Even reasonably sharp edges would not get a bite and the crust would break whenever it thought it might be fun to see me fall. Simply getting up from a 'hip check' on anything slightly steep convinced me that being there was not a good idea. Hmmmm. Side step down not a good option; crust did not always break, and edges might not grip. Walking not an option; sink up to hips. As difficult skiing as I can remember.

The views however were outstanding. The top 1000 feet of Mt. Stuart frosted with fresh snow, the fierce winter light over the Teanaway.

By the time I got back to 4600', the snow was actually skiable. Sort'a. Some new snow should fix things up, at least lower down. Not sure how well things are going to stick to the ice layer above however.

Larry