Instead of pouring rain this morning when I woke up, I encountered fairly heavy snow right outside our place in the valley. This is usually a good sign, and a quick call to the Lost Trail snow phone reported 11 inches of new snow. Making a visit to the hill was a no brainer. This time, I decided to pull out the fat skis, since I’d yet to hit any rocks or stumps on the skinny skis and I was anxious to get on something with some girth. The midfats are currently clamped up with hardening epoxy, so they weren’t quite an option. <BR> <BR>I thought it would be colder than yesterday since we had snow in the valley, but surprisingly, it was right around freezing at the base of the mountain. The new snow had fallen even a bit heavier than yesterday, somewhere in the 10-12% H20 range from summit to base. Lost Trail doesn’t have huge vertical (~1,200’) so there’s usually not much of a gradient in snow consistency, but today I could really feel it. The snow at the summit was close to yesterday’s consistency (although not quite face shots on the fat skis). The snow down at the bottom of chair 2 below the pass (6,600’) had not really reached what I’d call wet, but the groomed areas near the lift got that glazed appearance that develops with skier traffic on heavier snow. It became a bit grabby, reminding me of conditions I’d encountered near the bottom of Red Mountain a couple of years ago. After a couple of runs down to chair 2, I decided to hang up on chair 1 and avoid that last 400’ of heavier snow. <BR> <BR>Overall, the skiing was great. The new snow is going to really help build the base depth (this morning’s report said they were up to 31 inches of base) and get on towards opening the new chair. I spent the later part of the morning working on making turns in the heavy powder on the steeper terrain of South Face. The legs felt much better today, probably partly due to the fats, but I can tell they’re getting used to making turns as well. I rode once with one of the patrollers and got to hear them assembling their avi gear as they prepared to check the still-closed steep terrain for avalanche activity. The patroller said that the snowpack is a bit strange right now, and that on the Idaho side of the pass, a couple of small slides had filled in one lane of the highway. I saw some long fracture lines along the Montana side of the pass as well (this is just the 100 or so feet of cleared area along the end of the highway) but as usual, the snow that slid stopped before running into the road. <BR> <BR>I performed some more tests with the helmet cam, using a backpack setup to hold the camera and other equipment this time. Although obviously a bit bulkier than simply sticking stuff in a pocket or small sack, the added room made it easier to start and stop the camera between runs (and the camera isn’t likely to fall out anytime soon 
. This setup also puts less stress on the cords (I had to run out today and pick up a new cord to replace one whose plug finally gave out from too much stress). I guess one option is to ski more conservatively, but who wants to do that? I had the camera view at a bit of lower angle today (not necessarily on purpose) and put together another short QuickTime clip (~1 MB) for viewing. As usual, you should be able to click to view, or right click (PC) to save to your computer for viewing. <BR> <BR><A HREF="http://www.uvm.edu/~jsilveir/LTHC28DEC02.mov">http://www.uvm.edu/~jsilveir/LTHC28DEC02.mov</A> <BR> <BR>The mountains are under a winter storm warning again tonight and tomorrow with possibly another foot of snow. I’m hoping things cool off and the snow lightens up a bit, we’ll see. <BR> <BR>J.Spin
. This setup also puts less stress on the cords (I had to run out today and pick up a new cord to replace one whose plug finally gave out from too much stress). I guess one option is to ski more conservatively, but who wants to do that? I had the camera view at a bit of lower angle today (not necessarily on purpose) and put together another short QuickTime clip (~1 MB) for viewing. As usual, you should be able to click to view, or right click (PC) to save to your computer for viewing. <BR> <BR><A HREF="http://www.uvm.edu/~jsilveir/LTHC28DEC02.mov">http://www.uvm.edu/~jsilveir/LTHC28DEC02.mov</A> <BR> <BR>The mountains are under a winter storm warning again tonight and tomorrow with possibly another foot of snow. I’m hoping things cool off and the snow lightens up a bit, we’ll see. <BR> <BR>J.Spin