Public Observation

Observation Details

Observations

Skied the SE face of Mt. Baxter Monday and found good snow and pretty extreme terrain. A 7:15 start was adequate for us, travel was easy and we were able to make good time. We started booting at 10:45, which was pretty good time wise. Weather was generally warm and winds were calm. Around 12800' the snow in the main chute was breakable crust, the more south facing sides were soft and wet, but not corn, and the more sheltered northeast-ish side was unsupportable facets. The snow was bootable, but we often switched sides in an effort to avoid post-holing. Near the top of the face we found a wind slab in the chute with facets below. When isolated in a hand pit/shear the surface was non-planar, but the structure was definitely concerning. My partner above could feel me hacking the wind slab to isolate the hand pit. In response to this we went left and climbed the ridge (gnarly snow ridge climbing) to avoid the slab, and tried to ski the sunny side of the chute until we got past the slabby area, which was only a hundred and fifty feet or so.

Admittedly, we were accepting a pretty high risk tolerance on this tour and pushed on. If we encounter this setup again, we decided that we will bail. I wouldn't recommend this kind of behavior to myself or anyone else. I'm not sure how worth it is to push on like this. We are stoked to have skied the line but its definitely not worth dying over.

We dropped in at 1PM and found pretty good snow. The sunny side skied well and the slab was softened up a little. We had a stream of sluff coming down every turn but it was easily avoidable. The snow was always very edgable and never felt insecure. Lower in the chute we found fun recycled powder in the sheltered skier's left. The canyon below held recycled powder in the north facing shaded, sheltered aspects and proto-corn on the sunny aspects. Skiing was soft and felt corn-esque, but wasn't quite as supportable. Regardless it was very fun skiing!

Coverage in the chute was good, but wasn't terribly thick. I don't think it would ever be thick given how exposed it is and how steep and rocky the terrain is. We did find some rocks while climbing, but didn't hit anything while descending.

For me, this indicated that there is great coverage (no surprise), so now is a great time to get on these huge, exposed lines in the southern sierra. I am psyched for low, normally difficult trailheads. We were able to ski to 6200', and travel on the way up was super easy. However, there might be a very concerning structure up there, so keep that in mind. We didn't see any recent natural slides on the SE face. All avalanche debris was quite old. If anyone gets on this line and nails it in ripe corn, you'd be totally stoked. Even if the snow level rises quite a bit you could still hike up the trail and come up over the col next to Oak Peak if the drainage down low gets too nasty.

Signs of Unstable Snow