Last Weekend of White Corn?

The head Wasatch Weather Weenie on a rare ski tour

It was a magical day today.

First, I got my favorite e-mail from Google.  You know, the one with the header that says: "You have no events scheduled for today."  Oh, how I love it when that happens.

Then, my back felt unusually spry once again.  I'm hoping this is a trend, but if not, I decided to go for a short ski tour just in case.  If there was 18" new, the day would have been perfect, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

As is often the case with spring skiing, timing is everything and we had one great run and one terrible run.  On the ascent, we were quite pleased to find the snirt to be buried and the snow white.  Any hint of yellowing in the photo below is purely an artifact of my poor photography.  The snow had frozen just enough overnight to be supportive.

Our timing was perfect for a great run on a south-facing aspect into Snake Creek where we found the turns to be surprisingly good.  Buoyed for more, we climbed back up to ski out to the car and found nothing but mank and sticky snow on the north aspect where the snow from last week had yet to corn up.  C'est la vie.  One good run given my balky back is still quite satisfying.

This weekend might provide the last opportunity to ski "white corn" this year, if you can find anything that's corned up given the warm nights.  Snirt is already starting to appear in areas where the snowfall last week was light, scoured by the wind, or is melting fast.  It won't be long and the Wasatch will be looking brown and dingy.

This southeast facing aspect holds mostly white corn, but snirt is beginning to emerge

If you do get out, be careful.  We kicked off some really large roller balls and wet sloughs on steeper terrain once things had warmed up.