The dust Cain hide the crust

We headed up to Mount Cain today to see how well the latest snow has helped hide our most recent crust. We were pleasantly surprised to find 15-35cm of new snow sitting on top of the ice crust that was formed last weekend. There was evidence on both Cain and Abel of a storm slab avalanche cycle that had occurred in the past 24 hours. We found that wind slabs have formed on lee aspects at and just below ridge tops, and have the potential to still slide on the ice crust beneath them. Heading up the ridge towards the golf clubs, the ice has been exposed in a few spots, making for slippery traversing. With the lingering potential for wind slabs, as well as the rapidly diminishing visibility, we elected to ski down the resort rather than head into the bowl. We found that the new snow could protect you from feeling the crust on lower angle terrain, however it was still easy to scrape down to the crust on steeper slopes. In spite of the recent wind transport, there is still a lot of snow available to be blown around and form new wind slabs with our increasing winds this weekend.