Jan 28 -- black butte (ca)

this has been my best pow day so far down here in cali. with access to the siskiyous and shasta temporarily impeded by recent storm events, the ne face of black butte (an easily accessible cinder cone of ~2k and a consistent blend of 30/40dg terrain) seemed like an obvious choice. although a recent reconnaissance yielded treacherous results -- of a nearly saturated snowpack - with a sandwiched weak layer in areas. a front, or cold tail end of the storm which has battered us for nearly two days lowered the freezing level from 5k to ~1k last night.

the boot pack trail breaking was difficult -- with mostly knee deep pow (crusts and wet snow beneath) and numerous areas of waist deep. the ride down was fantastic, almost all pow with a little patch of a surface rain crust.

i took some pictures with a throwaway, but they will cost a fortune to develop (if i can get them developed locally), and they're probably not very good anyway; although black butte is an interesting distinguished feature - worthy of glance.