I toured from the Trans La Sal Parking lot at 9000' along the trail and up Noriega's NW Ridge to its summit at 10500' to get a view of the lower elevation snow pack and to ski the upper portion of the NW-W facing burn. Over snow travel is challenging on anything below 9700'. S facing Portions of the Trans La Sal train are nearly down to dirt or will be after a few days of sun. Navigating the brush is challenging until about 9500' where travel becomes better. I enjoyed great skiing above 10000' on the NW face. Going up the NW ridge I probed snow depths of 55cm at 9500', 70cm at 10000', and 80cm at 10500'.

I dug a pit at 10,450' below tree line on a NW Face in exposed alpine like terrain and got ECTN9 @ 65cm and ECTP25 @ 47cm on a layer of facets below a dense 4F slab and our recent snow. I stayed on slope angles <30 degrees on any slope NW-NE facing. Skiing was soft and enjoyable on the NW aspect and I didn't observe any collapsing while turning or touring.

I dug a second pit on a NE face in an exposed slope at 10500'. The snow depth at this elevation was 45-55cm and there was roughly 15cm of new and wind blown snow on top of a very dense snowpack. I got an ECTN5 @ 43cm on a melt/freeze and new snow interface in addition. There were no other failures in the snowpack during the test. Skiing still seemed thin on this aspect but the snowpack that does exist is very firm.

Excellent skiing remains on northerly aspects in the trees and in exposed terrain it is a mixed bag of soft snow and areas of hard wind blown snow.