Went out to poke around the backyard and start building a baseline of the snowpack. With the peak of Brennan obscured, and uninspiring rocky shallow conditions above Lyell lakes, we switched gears to ski from Brennan SE3 on “Mama Mia” and a couloir above.

Access
We were able to drive to 1300m without chains. Followed the road and summer trail through alder, which was reasonable on the up, and mediocre on the way down.

Snowpack
HS tapered from 60cm @ 1600m to 105cm @2300m.
Generally well bonded snowpack with no notable test results on two different test profiles at 1800m S aspect and 2300m NW aspect. Minor cracking in top 10-15cm of wind slab while on the up track, but no reactivity to skis or evidence of natural activity in the basin or over towards the Retallack tenure.

At 2300m 50cm of recent storm snow sat on top of the early November rain crust. The crust was 5mm knife, with faceting above and below. 10-20cm of crust/facet combo above the ground. Multiple CT tests, all breaks in the moderate range, in facets above the November rain crust.

Other notable is last nights storm brought a significant amount of graupel to size 2. While on the NW aspect of Brennan SE3 at 2500m, it was 20-30cm deep, which was a new experience.

Ski quality was incredible.