Beehive Basin

Toured into Beehive Basin from Beehive Basin Trailhead. We got to the trailhead at around 8:00am or so and it was -18 degrees Fahrenheit. Due to strong winds the past week coming from W/SW our objective was to ride the west facing chutes coming down from the ridge that runs between Beehive Basin and Middle Basin. The negative degree temps were constant throughout the day, even when the sun came out. There were completely clear skies and very little wind, only a slight breeze coming from the west. We saw no signs of avalanches or instability at any point during the day. Some spots off to the side of the chutes and higher up in the chutes were thin. We hit rocks while skinning up and some spots had light snow on top of a crust that made skinning somewhat difficult in these spots. We dug a snow pit near the bottom of one of the chutes to test the layer of facets that is near the ground. The snow depth was 75cm and we got CTH26 PC 20cm from the ground on the layer of facets and ECTX. Having not gotten any concerning results on the layer of facets we felt confident in the stability of the relatively steep chutes and enjoyed a few fun laps riding great snow in the center of the chutes.