In for 2025: powder sledding above the clouds

Happy New Year! Today we sledded in the Big Y. In most places we found 20 cm of soft snow over the December crust which made for some good riding. We saw moderate north winds at ridge top starting to blow some snow around. We avoided steep, convex features in exposed areas where we expect wind slabs will exist and still be reactive on the buried crust. We dug at 1650 m on a north-facing slope and found surface hoar (weak, feathery crystals) on top of the crust. We didn’t get any results on this layer in this location.