Sunshine Ridge 2-24-09

I took the day off today and thought I had picked a great ski day since it rained like crazy down here last night. I was hoping to go to Sugar Bowl or Squaw, but unfortunately the storm was very warm and windy so by the time I left the house, my expectations were low. I planned to go to Mt Rose Ski Resort, but when I got there (~9:00) the Quad lifts and Chuter were still not running due to wind. So I headed up to the Big Springs parking area since I knew Ed was heading out to Sunshine Ridge at 9:00. I met two split-boarders in the lot and we headed up to the ridge and took our first run together. While they set up their boards I went down a little bit and dug a pit. The snow was pretty uniform and I didn't find a layer in the pit wall, but when I did the shovel compression test it failed at 28 on two tests with a pretty clean shear (but didn't pop). We stuck to mellow, treed lines, but the snow was pretty worked by the wind everywhere we went. I caught Ed and two friends, Chris and Ranbir, and skied the next run with them. We looked at skiing Benoit's Chute, but decided to stay safe and stick with the mellower terrain. Although the snow wasn't great (interesting is what Treyson, my 8yo, calls it now) it was a fun morning. We had beautiful blue skies and it was a very social ski; quite different from my last time in the same area where I didn't see a single other person.