Surface snow continues to weaken, so you sink in deeper and you're more likely to hit buried rocks. We found fairly shallow snow conditions and lots of big rocks in Magic Land and Boiler Bowl today.

The snow is stable for now, but the weak snow on the surface will be a persistent weak layer once buried. There's likely to be avalanche trouble ahead with the next significant new snow load.

On our way up the Steam Mill-White Pine Ridge, we noticed some evidence of wind slab and cornice fall avalanche activity from last week. (1-15-15?)

We found soft re-crystallized surface snow and shallow, rocky conditions in both Boiler Bowl and Magic Land. Even though the (nearby) Tony Grove Snotel is reporting a bit more than normal snow water equivalent, I haven't before seen this area so shallow and rocky in mid-winter. Thinking the east wind event at the end of December may have stripped snow out of these areas.

Exposed terrain was pretty wind-jacked, making for easy ridge-top traveling on solid and supportable snow.

Mt. Gog standing tall and keeping lookout over upper White Pine Canyon...