Objective for the day was to assess how easy our cohesionless, faceted surface snow moves on steeper slopes sitting above the buried rain crust. We saw no obvious signs of recent loose dry avalanches or sluffing on test slopes while jumping up and down to evalaute the hazard. Due to the lack of recent avalanche activity in the area and the snowpack not containing a cohesive slab above the rain crust, we felt comfortable skiing in steeper terrain with more exposure. However, we still practiced safe travel protocol despite the overall low danger for today (i.e. skiing slopes one at a time, having good communication with partners, and having good visual on partners skiing).
Drove up the Jewel Basin road as far as we felt comfortable and found a parking spot just past the Switchback Trailhead. We skinned past Camp Misery and gained the ridge on the west side of Noisy Basin. We climbed to the ridge dividing Noisy and Jewel Basin's near the Radio Tower. We descended a north/northeast aspect into Picnic Lakes area. Traveled south to the saddle northeast of Mount Aeneas. Gained the summit of Mount Aeneas via the northeast ridge then skied a northeast aspect off the summit back to our skin tail from Picnic Lakes proper. We followed the bread crumbs back to Picnic Lakes and then onto the Notch. We descended a west aspect down to Camp Misery and then out the road to the truck.
