Incline Lake Peak

We FINALLY got some new snow! It's not been a big Sierra dump, but enough to lay down some nice, fresh powder on top of our dwindling base. Although I thoroughly enjoyed spending yesterday with the family and running errands around town (actually it was kind of nice to have a "normal" weekend day), I felt I had to get Yuki out in the backcountry before I headed up to South Lake Tahoe for the NAFP conference (where I'm teaching three days in a row).

We met Eric Martin at 7:00 at the Galena Starbucks parking lot and then drove up into the increasing snow. The snowbanks that usually tower up over the road are almost non-existent! But there were a few inches of new snow when we parked at the turnout above Incline Lake and it just kept increasing as we climbed.

It was very light, but on the northern aspects it seemed to already be bonding with the older layer and skied very nicely.

We started with two mellower runs in the trees and then took our third (and my final) run down the steeper bowl. I stopped to dig a pit (and forgot to take pictures of it). The snow was about 5 feet deep at 8950', with 12" of light new snow on the top. Another ~12" down was a thin layer, probably an old crust and then down another ~12 inches another thin layer. Finally down at the bottom there is a good 6 - 8" of faceted sugar snow, but it's beginning to bond a little bit. I did two compression shovel tests and the first time it fractured at 16 taps, but didn't propagate, at the first layer I noted above. Even once I removed that layer I could not get the second layer to give.

Yuki and I then skied out to the lake and car (I let him pull me across the lake) while Eric joined Pierre who came up later.