Feb. 4, Commonwealth Basin

Planned to head up Kendall trees with Francine today.  I had seen a couple trip reports that made it seem like a doable objective.  Unfortunately, when we reached the trees, it looked like full survivor skiing.  There was just a lot of brush still not covered by our thin snowpack.  The few tracks from the weekend had frozen up quite hard.   I am sure up high, we could have gotten decent turns, but we decided to skip Kendall and cruised further up valley.  Second plan was to tour the drainage between Red and Kendall.  I contoured in, a little too soon, for the drainage and we ended up  skiing a short slope beneath Kendall.   More of a snowshoe trip than a ski, but good to get out.  Great snow quality where untracked.

Francine