With only 8 inches of total snow on the stake at the Tony Grove Snotel, backcountry snow conditions are obviously shallow. Even so, you can find slopes at the highest elevations with smooth underlying ground and enough snow for a bit of early season fun.

We found a few pockets of skiable terrain today on Cornice Ridge, west of and above Tony Grove Lake. Only north facing slopes above around 8500 feet in elevation have enough snow, since snow from October survived only on upper elevation shady slopes. Unlike our lucky southern neighbors in the Central Wasatch Range who can boast of feet of fresh snow, the last weekend storm only produced inches in the Bear River Range.

With the very shallow,and on many slopes, baseless snow cover, the danger of hitting rocks or stumps (or falling on them) is real, and you need to keep your speed down and maintain control to avoid potential season spoiling accidents... It is certainly still too shallow to ride sleds in the backcountry without damaging your ride or causing resource damage....

In my experience, shallow early season snow cover often leads to increased avalanche danger later in the winter. The shallow snow is subjected to steep temperature gradients, which drives water vapor sublimation and the development of notoriously weak faceted crystals in the basal layers of the snowpack. The process is sped up by clear, cold, and dry nights common under high pressure systems. Despite cloud cover and warmer temperatures in the past few days, the existing shallow snow cover and lack of much hope for insulating depth from a significant dump in the near future are setting us up for avalanche problems when a real storm hits...

Here's a look at the upper bowl of Cornice Ridge, one of the few slopes in the region holding barely enough snow for early season turns...