Sunday we were unable to get to Mores Creek Summit. We left at dusk from Boise, but the road to Idaho City was closed until later in the day due to damaged power lines from treefall. We had to wait until Monday, December 3rd to ski tour Pilot Peak and ride fresh pow.
The snowpack depths are showing minimal variability, with depths in the 80-85 cms regardless of aspect or elevation. At the same time, we continue to confirm the presence of buried basal facets (depth hoar) at North, northeast, east, and southeasterly aspects above 7000 feet. It has been a surprise how widespread and uniform the weak persistent layer is!
Check the snowpit for today, included below. Notice the reactivity of the snowpack to propagation propensity testing from the test results in the snowpit report or the video embedded below.
PST10/120 Pilot Peak 20181203 from Santiago Rodriguez on Vimeo.
Similar to Chris (Sawtooth Avalanche Center forecaster) observation of whumps at Titus Ridge last Sunday, we also observed snow being knocked down from trees during whumps that travel hundreds of meters.
The skiing was phenomenal in all aspects. And the good news is that the additional new snow has dramatically improved the coverage. Thus today we did not hit any buried objects.
Pilot20181203 from Santiago Rodriguez on Vimeo.
There still not enough snow to safely ski below 7000 feet. I recommend continuing accessing higher elevations through Pilot Peak road. By the way, today the forest service road was groomed. It was a pleasant ski down to MCS Pass at Idaho 21.
For today's Bitacora check the next link: