Quick report
So weird (and nice) to be back in fresh snow, I could get used to this! Went out to Broken Top crater area today. Surprisingly was the only sled parked there at 9am. People know something I don’t? 🤔 I can confirm that the area was definitely heavily wind-affected as Gabe mentioned in the forecast. Some areas had nice pow, some were stripped almost to the crust. Definitely variable. At the bottom of Pucker, it didn’t look to good. First there 5 tracks in it prolly from yesterday, it had definitely already slid earlier (crowns at the top and a pretty big soft debris pile at the bottom), and some areas were clearly stripped almost to the crust. One of the chutes just lookers left lower on the ridge looked like it had way bettter snow, so planned to head there. Got up on the ridge and proceeded to pass the entrance to said line, and didn’t realize it till I was almost at the top of Pucker, so figured oh well I guess I’ll go there. 🙄 I was pleasantly surprised to find an alternate entrance to Pucker that I like, actually went today for the first time this season. Dropped a cornice there and snow looked good, and it definitely had better snow than the main entrance (and no tracks). Managed to find most of the good panels for a nice descent. Then went over to the other side of the crater and climbed up lookers left of 3 o’clock. That zone had some debris from some storm slabs (see pics), but also some of the smoothest snow out there. And also some heavily wind affected snow. Where I climbed up was a nice smooth panel, but between the time I topped out and when I dropped, a bunch of loose snow roller balls came down the slope. Still good but not ideal. This was despite some cloud cover. That’s probably gonna be happening a lot when some real sun gets on those slopes. NOTE: A month back in an obs post, I mentioned that I lost my whippet poles. To follow up… THEY WERE FOUND! Love this community! 👍 (Thanks Noah!!)
Avalanche
Debris from several storm slabs noted