Avalanche control and an early morning announcement by Squaw Valley that the resort would be opening Granite Chief made for a promising start to the day. However, rain to the summit made for a soggy day better suited for staying indoors than heading out and getting soaked. The snowpack, with its 4 inches of new snow, was completely saturated making the skiing very sticky. One skier described it as “completely isothermal and gunky, funky, nasty, manky, and tear-your-knee-off”. All day long you could hear the creeks and streams flowing below the snowpack which is never a good sound in early December.
Lower mountain looking very thin.
Milky conditions on upper mountain.
The skiing could have been great if not for all the moisture.
Things got so ugly that the ski patrol had to bust out the rescue raft.