Here’s your Dirtbag Report for Tuesday, March 26 at Sandia Crest.
Day 40 on skis.
Temperature 22F, with cloudy skies and a brisk wind.
I drove up to the Crest today just after noon and found that the Crest Highway was mostly dry, until about a mile below the 10k trailhead, where it became snow packed to the Ellis Trailhead, where I parked.
I skied up the Switchback trail to the Kiwanis Road, and then as is my custom, I continued up to the Crest, with heavy snow/graupel falling, to the overlook just south of the La Luz trail. My view was clouds, wind and snow. So I headed back down to the Kiwanis Road  and continued south to Kiwanis cabin, where I had another view into the clouds, with gusty winds on the rim. I turned around and skittered back down from the cabin to the soft, friendly snow on the Kiwanis Road, which I followed back up to the Switchback trail, then skied back down the Switchback to Ellis. I found the skiing to be excellent. As others have noted, there are a couple of fallen trees on the Switchback, but they are easily skied over/through. After returning to the Ellis Trailhead, I visited with one of the only other skiers I saw (Scott Sunday), then headed south on the Klaus trail over to the tram, with very controllable snow conditions. I finally got a view over to the west side when I climbed to the rim at the tram. I returned to my car on the Service Road, which is imminently skiable. Throughout my little ski adventure I found 1-3” of new snow/graupel, with a rather sticky texture, making for very controllable descents. It was snowing hard when I left at 3:15, and the temperature remained at 22.
Those who can motivate to get to the Crest tomorrow morning will be rewarded with excellent conditions, especially for late March.


Sent from my iPad_______________________________________________
NMCCSCeGroup mailing list
NMCCSCeGroup@mailman.swcp.com
To unsubscribe:
Login to our website at ski.nmccskiclub.org and click on the "Opt out of Egroup" option in your member profile, and scroll down and click "Save". You can toggle this at any time and changes will register within 24 hours.