Archangel Valley> Pinnacle

Our goal today was to ride machines up Archangel Valley, check out snow surfaces, count the inches of new snow, find decent snow to ski, and practice multiple burials with avalanche transceivers. Thanks to the Snow Riders, the motorized trails were freshly groomed, which helped limit hazards with the poor light and obscured sky throughout the day. Few people were out recreating, likely due to the lack of sun. IM station reported approximately 3 inches of new snow over the past 2 days, and we found 3-4" new snow up Archangel Valley. New snow has considerably improved riding conditions.  We did not observe any instabilities or avalanche problems today, although loose avalanches should be on our radar as soon as the sun pops out. 

No signs of instability were observed today. If visibility was better today, we might have seen a few small dry loose in steep terrain from earlier in this week.