Oodles and oodles of beautiful white snow!  The Silver Creek crossing below the Lake Alpine dam can (finally) be accomplished anywhere.  Which was most appreciated by patrollers who covered the north face of Inspiration Point last weekend with deeply cut turns. 

With some skiers we met on Saturday we dug some pits on Saturday, revealing, surprisingly, a shear layer ~11" from the surface, and another, about a foot below.  This is all from within the past week's storm, which accounted, in fact, for all six feet of the pit we dug.  Granted, the pit was on a lee slope, but you get the idea: there is *a lot* of snow out here, desperate to be enjoyed. 

(Despite the relatively (for California) dry snow, we expect the above mentioned shear interfaces to consolidate quickly.  But standard avy-caveat applies; dig your own pits if you venture into avy terrain.)

Meanwhile, remember that TELEFEST is coming up.  We'll have to patrollers teaching at it, and LANSP might be going out touring with the TeleFesters on the Sunday backcounty trip.  Plenty of logistics still to be worked out, but we hope to see you there.

Mark