We went for a little walkabout today with very low expectations....and guess what? Those expectations were spot on! It was a beautiful day in the mountains with plenty of blue skies and sunshine, but the snow depth and quality was lacking. We found a wide range of old rime crusts exposed by wind drifting, breakable wind crusts, rotting and faceted basal snow, and some nice sharp rocks and bushes sprinkled in to keep it spicy. Not to sound like a complainer or anything, but it was definitely not what you'd expect from Utah snow this time of the year.

The snow depth was around 18-20" on the ground and mostly consolidated. We were able to stay on top while touring on our splitboards, but the snowmo ride in was just plain scary. We feel pretty lucky to escape with all the sled components still in tact. We rode mostly East and North East aspects today that were in the neighborhood of 9000'. We did pop out onto a south slope just for kicks and found it a little bit wet. On the East slopes was severely wind affected snow that sat on top of a pretty slick bed surface. It's not looking like it will play nice with any new snow that we may get in the hopefully really soon future.

All in all, it was still nice to go for a walk in the mountains today. That's always better than sitting behind a computer, but we are eagerly awaiting a refresh.