Overall, we mostly wanted to travel some terrain, see how the snow surfaces were, and look at the recent wind-drifted snow avalanche on Whiskey Hill. It was a mixed bag of snow surfaces. Most solar-facing aspects had a more stout but still breakable crust. Polar aspects still held soft snow where it was protected, but out of the trees or off true north there was a bit of a wind skin. Enough that it had blown in tracks and Saturday’s avalanche, but not enough to be supportable. The sleds were easily breaking through.
In protected terrain, we were also able to find large preserved surface hoar, which is worth noting, but overall it does not appear widespread and is generally isolated to well-protected zones.
Surface hoar in protected trees
Overall, the danger felt LOW. The main concern would be small slabs of wind-drifted snow, as there is still soft snow available for transport, and old avalanche paths like Whiskey Hill have filled back in. That said, these are currently small and isolated to very specific terrain features in the Monte Cristo zone that allow drifting snow to accumulate.
Photos of Whiskey Hill Avalanche - filled back in from wind
