Whitewater Backcountry Conditions

Spent Saturday skiing the backcountry around Whitewater Ski Resort on all but one aspect. Started on the North face with a lap down Acidophilus into 5-mile drainage and the skiing was excellent, great snow with about 40cm ski penetration and good stability all around. From here we toured back up to the ridge and took a second lap into 5-mile but this time heading more East in order to get closer to 5-mile proper. It turns out we were the first ones to skin up 5-mile this day so we had to put in a skin track and immediately saw that there was far less snow on this West facing aspect - 15cm at best. The ski down proved to be better than we thought it would be which was a nice surprise. We took it cautious skiing the fingers and had no evidence of instability. Skiing back up to the ridge above Silver King we decided to poke out into Goat Slide with very low expectations. Staying in the trees we skied down VERY conservatively as the Jan 29 surface hoar layer was active with shooting cracks and some collapse of the snow under foot but with no movement. The snow was wind scoured so the skiing was not great.

Noth Aspects have plenty of snow.

Overall, North faces are where you will find the best turns but I have heard rumours that White Queen has improved considerably over the past few days. At any rate, play it safe as the conditions are variable and the avi rating is high.

I hope this information is of use, if you have been getting out in the backcountry be sure to post up a quick conditions report so we can all benefit as this is the best way to build a solid backcountry skiing community. Share what you know!

To have a closer look at our route check out the data on our Suunto Moves Count page here.