Craig said it best with, "it's instant winter". Although the snow cover is still a little shallow, what a good start to the winter season. The grassy meadows and low angle slopes free of hazards offer the best riding and sliding.
Even at the 10,000' elevation the cover is still marginal, but enough snow for getting out to look around and get back into the groove.
This shallow snow pit on a north facing slope at 10,000' shows the recent storm snow with the October 23-24 storm at the bottom and how weak and sugary this snow looks. These upper elevation north facing areas will likely be places to keep a watchful eye on.
I was not able to isolate a column in this snow pit where the new snow was overloading the weak early season snow. There were cracks and a couple of good collapses as I approached this location.
