Great day for a Tour de Wolvy. Went to check out how the new snow is settling in on top of our rotten base.

We stopped on a NNE slope at 9600' just before gaining the shoulder of Patsy Marley once we entered Grizzly Gulch. The poor structure was there but not where I expected it. I was honed in on where old met "new", a 10cm P slab 35-45cm above the ground (HS 105cm). We ended up getting ECTN12 @ 82cm and ECTN14 @ 76cm (Photo 7). This was surprising to me because on my initial hand hardness tests it seemed all 1F from 45-100cm. Upon pulling some temps it was great to find a large jump from -4.5C @ 75cm to -6.7C @ 85cm. The rest of the snowpack above and below this layer of concern had less than 1C change/10cm. Lack of propegation in the result doesn't mean it won't start up once the slab above it gets more cohesive, will be a good note to check in on later.

Once on the ridge the surface was all a glitter with a wild mix of rhyme/graupel balls and surface hoar (Photo1)...I'm guessing this might be the radiation recrystallization crystals that Gagne often writes RR in the surface of? I'm used to this glittery texture being either surface hoar or NSF but these were different, they linked together in chains as if magnitized when you picked them up. Honestly now that I think about the base of the crust in our Wolvy Bowl pit and they enchained themselves too, almost like static. Honest question here about these crystals... really cool to see but obviously a potential weak layer.

Anyways, onward to the top of Patsy. Really bleak down there in the cirque. (Photo 2)

As we wrapped around the cirque a recent-ish crown from an obv was visible, pretty E facing ~10,400'. (Photo 3)

On the summit of Wolvy we were able to catch the sight of a thrill seeker setting a skinner and making lil wiggles on Cardiac Ridge Run just behind a very bare looking Toledo Chute. (Photo 4) E facing avalanche terrain around 10,500'. Just something to think about with the current PWL...I think we are really used to our early season PWL lurking on northerly slopes. I know that the way the wind follows terrain and available snow for transport are really different if you want to compare Cardiac Ridge Run, it seems like there have been more early season obvs coming in specifically on Cardiac, too. If you have your head in the snow enough and know the real history of a slope it can make it easier to push into terrain that others wouldn't. I don't know shit about whats happening over there so E high elevation terrain is off limits for me. When we looked to the east of Cardiac there were two ski tracks coming down the face of Football Field (E 9600'), a pretty notorious zone when it comes to skiers not expecting to get into trouble. Its eerie to see tracks like these and I just hope that our community is keeping in mind that the PWL does currently exist on E slopes. You'll see why I ramble about this when we get to our Wolvy Bowl pit.

We take 2 nice laps on creamy windboard (visually very wind effected) in Wolvy Bowl and I can't help but think the price of entry for these two laps is fairly high (heinous skinning conditions along cirque) but its one I'm willing to pay for my first real turns of the year outside of teaching avy classes.

Both times as we come near the summit on our way back up the N ridge skinner we experience wumfing. The second time we popped over to the side to dig an E (todays avy report mentioned recent avalanches on E slopes) pit @ 10,740'. Found it! We were short on time (a looming wtf exit back along cirque) so I just dug enough for an ECT. As I was cutting out the side "pizza slices" they collapsed as I was sawing. We got ECTP13 25cm down from the surface, very planar. It didn't cash register out but the base of the slab was clearly a cohesive crust. (Photo 5) The underlying base was a bathtub of sugar facets .5-1mm. I ran my hand along the pit wall to find a 3cm crust sitting on these facets. (Photo 6)

We took an incredibly cautious weird route down Microwave and were pleased with the riding conditions, didn't hit any rocks and very fluffy powder snow. Couldn't believe the coverage on the SW aspect. Still managed to get way too involved with the shrubbery and exited onto the summer road smelling like a pine car freshener exclaiming "We made it out alive!" to the people skinning up the road.

All in all its the middle of December. High price of entry to find turns that are either on slopes under 30 degrees or on the few aspects with coverage that don't have the PWL on the forecast rose. Awesome day to be in the mountains, dig in the snow, and get some relevant results. I'm not trying to shame or call out the people skiing 30+ degree E facing mid-upper elevation, who knows what they know that I don't. Its just sending some hope out into the universe that people are doing their homework and not just getting lucky. There's lots of winter to come (it actually starts on the 21st) and eventually those considerable PWL slopes will turn green.