December 15, 2014
There wasn’t much to report since my last report on the 4th. Last weeks temperatures were in the upper 30’s 3-4 hours each day and a couple days were in the low 40’s. Luckily it didn’t take too much snow. A few of the southern slopes bared off along with a few tree wells. The valley is still mostly white and there is about 3-6 inches of crusty hard snow at the surface. Friday night through Saturday night the snow level was over 7500 and dropped to the Valley floor Sunday morning and continued to snow until Sunday afternoon. We picked up 2-3 inches in the Alpine area. Currently snowtel sites are blindbull 36″, spring creek 34″, and willow creek 27″. The snowpack for the Snake River Drainage is 116% snow water equivelant and 98% total precipitation. I rode up to the top of the Squaw Creek trail today. The Greys River trail along the river has 1 to 1 1/2 feet of snow on the edges of the trail. The trail is rock hard with some new snow for lubrication. I didn’t have to run my scratchers but it helped. Snow gets deeper quick as you climb up squaw. My intension was to take several measurements, but the snow was so hard I had a tough time getting my tape measure to the bottom. One spot I checked towards the top was 32″. It was also a little tough to tell what was new from this last storm. There was 6-12″ inches of softer snow on top of the harder base. The groomer was also grooming the squaw trail today. In all 32 inches may not sound like much, but the coverage is really good for this time of the year. Most of the downed trees and rocks have a good thick layer covering them, your sled is riding in the top of the snowpack. I was riding alone today so I didn’t push into the upper bowls, but the snow was getting softer as I was getting higher. I have to believe the upper bowls of squaw and Murphy have to be pretty good. Many years we don’t have a base like this until late January. The riding is decent for this time of the year. One good dump on this base could take it to excellent real quick.