December 23
Started at the Alta guard station ascending to Cardiff pass and continuing over to power line ridge descending the skier's right side two pitches. Ascended the ridge and followed the Cardiff ridge over for a descent of Little Superior buttress, northeast facing to the flats.
Ascended the sub ridge east facing to the top of Superior descending the skier's right chute to the flats. Ascended Cardiac ridge to the base of the chute and descended. Traversed to the north and ascended for a partial run on High Ivory running out of daylight and descending out Cardiff.
Weather:
Bluebird for most of the day with increased westerly windsa in the afternoon. Moderate temperatures..
Snow:
There was about three or four inches of snow at the upper elevations of the creamy dense variety. This snow was very skiable with little indication of instability. We did see one small fracture and a short running slide, with the fracture ten feet wide and eight inches deep and running all of about five feet.
Descent to the lower elevations revealed a different snow pack. There was a crust, at first just stiff, then becoming stout and breakable finally mostly supportable refrozen rain crust. It was mostly unskiable even on flat terrain. The dramatic change occurs at about 8500 feet.
Bottom Line:
Snow is mostly stable with some potential hazard from isolated wind drifts at the upper elevations. The main hazard would be trying to ski the mid and lower elevations without some softening from warm temperatures or sun.
maynerd g. krebs