Marbles Behind

The previous week has provided significant snow to this area, which made for good riding in protected areas. With visibility challenges today, this area allowed us to test smaller features at elevation with easy retreat in deteriorating weather. 3 cm new snow/mix precip in the morning with moderate-strong West winds. Temperatures around zero throughout morning. Moist surface snow at lower elevations, slightly dryer up high. Lee features on east facing slopes had upwards of 100 cm of new snow from this week sitting over the March 19th rain crust. Thick wind slabs present on these features. Our test pit at just over 500 m on an East facing slope, showed a weak layer down 65 cm at the crust/new snow interface. Test results indicate that wind slabs are likely bonded to the underlying crust, but this may not be the case everywhere. Winter seems to have bounced back this weak. Over 3 m of snow on one of our test slopes today:)