Tallac Observation

Toured up the south bowl on Tallac today. We found decent corn on S and SE aspects at upper elevations and some grippy transitional snow on NE aspects and lower elevations. Basically it was a bit early in the cycle for widespread corn to be ripe, but some ripe corn could still be found. Above about 8000 feet a moderate cool E breeze was doing a nice job slowing down snow softening. We ascended from Fallen Leaf Lake where snow below treeline was very punchy to boot penetration by 8:30am but skinning worked well due to a shallow refreeze. Ascending closer to the summit ridge there were some attractive ski tracks from a day or two ago in a NE chute. While these were tempting it was clear that the snow on these aspects was still going through wet metamorphism and was sticky both skinning and especially skiing. My partner did his first backcountry double eject this season when he skied into an area of very grippy snow and his skis decelerated faster than his torso. That noted, we did find decent corn on many SE and E aspects. As we exited the area, lower elevation snow (below 7200 feet) was very soft. We observed at least some wet loose activity at basically all the elevations we traveled today. 

Photo 1: South bowl zone on Tallac

Photo 2: Minimal boot penetration at 10:30am on a low angle open area at 8000 feet.

Photo 3: We encountered two different snow holes/moats. This was the larger one at about 8600 feet. The other was just below the summit ridge. 

Photo 4: Skinning higher on this E facing slope the NE side had soft still transitioning new snow from this weekend. It was impressive how the climbers right side of this gully had decent corn while the climbers left (more NE) still had mushy, sticky hot pow.

Photo 5: Looking further east at the Crystal Range

Photo 6: Small skier triggered wet loose slides. These were easy to trigger on the NE side of this run. The E side of this feature had quality corn with now wet loose issues.

Photo 7: Lower on the mountain we found more widespread wet loose issues. This photo doesn't do a very good job showing how many rollerballs were created by some of these turns below about 8000 feet around noon. 

Photo 8: Below 7000 feet and later in the day produced impressively deep boot penetration.