05 Jan 2012 - upside down?

About 80cm so far from this storm - the first biggish event for the season. Started out light and turned more dense later. I didn't get up very high today, but found upside down snow where I went. The wind got amongst the storm as well. All we really needed from this storm was the 25cm we received yesterday morning. However, being Japan, we got more than we needed and to what end? Will have to wait and see. I'll be looking for the soft low density snow of yesterday morning (4 Dec) underneath denser wind effected snow that followed into the evening and over today. Also on the lookout for windslab with loading from the north onto that 120102 sun crust that would be how deep by now at treeline?

Today I didn't bother with heading up high - too much trail breaking for snow that by ate yesterday afternoon has clearly started to trend towards poor stability. Instead I skinned from the door for my annual tour on the hill behind my house where I can get short steep lines just down the road. Unfortunately the wind had ben knocking down tree bombs all night and that left the snow under the well spaced cedars pocked with dense patches and all-round variable. I skied a few lines in different directions and had the best snow to the south in hardwood stands. Then skied back to the front door.

Bonus photo today is of the backyard pillow line I found. It's pretty marginal.