Good snow, great tele skiing Deadman

Hoar Frost covers this seedling....a bad sign for stable snowpack this winter

Jim Heckel enjoys the bluebird day on Deadman ridge

In less than 24 hours I returned from a conference in Las Vegas where the temperatures were in the 60s and folks were in shirtsleeves to a great backcountry ski in the Little Belts where temps were in the teens and I had to bundle up.
The Little Belt part was certainly more satisfying than the Las Vegas part.
The ski sky was a bright, cloudless blue and there was no wind.
Because we started early we were able to enjoy the snow before it got too wet from the hard-beating radiant sun.
There was a new layer of powder from a storm Thursday and Friday that was topped off by a hoar frost that could make for a layer of instability in snowpack later this season.
We headed directly for the southernmost open slopes on the Deadman run off Kings Hill Pass.
I suspect the buffet food I had consumed on two consecutive nights in Las Vegas gave me the energy I needed to break trail and get us off the tele slope bottom.
We found the snow to be setting up nicely.  Last week we had several instances of baseless snow.  Jim Heckel found a couple of spots on the tele slope, but I didn't.
This was my first time out with my new Karhu Guide 175 mm skis.  I was amazed at how well they floated coming down the slopes and how nicely they climbed back up.  This is going to be a good replacement for my 170 Atomic Chugach skis. It will be better in the deep powder and its wider head will make turns come easier.