December 25, 2011

A Rusty Christmas Eve

Back to the Anchorage Front Range:  we found exceptional snow quality on Rusty.  Slightly more settled than yesterday, it only ran chin deep on the descent.  It was a bit cooler, 10F.  Snow was knee deep on an icy to rocky base.  Adrian, DP and I made some laps on a northwest-facing couloir/gully of Rusty.  My skis found a few rocks at the top, but there was a good base in the gully.  While the snow was not over-the-head like yesterday, it was very, very good! 

We found significant avalanche rubble at the gully run out.  The rubble was old, icy debris covered with new snow.  It likely had avalanched during (one of ) the prior wind event(s) earlier this month.

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