050 - 2010-01-10 Stone Creek

A sunny day out for the 50th ski day of the season. Headed up Stone Creek with Shawn, Gibby, Niko, Tesch and John, fresh from snow deprived Texas. Skied 2 1/2 miles in and parked on a snowy knoll with a great view of the Bridgers and just hung out in the sunshine for a while.
Conditions - A little chilly to start, but quickly warmed once things opened up and we got into the sun. Trail was plowed to the first house, tire tracks to the second and foot, snowshoe and ski tracked after that. Off trail was a bit heavy coming down.

Dug a pit on the NE side of the snowy knoll and did a column test. Snow was 8-10 of newer on top of a thin dense layer followed by sugary junk to the ground. Column failed at the dense layer after two light taps. Really scary, the slope there couldn't have been more than 10 degrees. We stuck to the heavier SW facing low angle stuff back to the trail, probably a good thing anyway for some, see pix.
Ski - Germina Tour GS 200 - First time I've had these out in winter conditions. They did OK, but not great climbers and there was a certain buzz on the faster downhill bits. They can't turn worth shit, but I knew that. I'll save them for the wet snow kick n glide.