Adder adjacent

<p>With the storm forecasted to hit the west coast hard, we had to go check it out. Upon arriving at Sutton pass the rain switched to snow, much to our delight. The sled ride up was quite wet, we parked around 900 m, changed to a dry shell, and headed up on foot. The initial skin up was quite tricky with the 5-15 cm of new snow sliding off the hard crust underneath in the steep terrain. We climbed up to the subpeak north of Adder and dug a pit. We found that there was 15-35 cm of new snow on the ridge that had no bond to the crust below. Beneath this crust the snowpack is the consistency of a slushy. On our ski down we found the storm slab was very touchy and quick to slide away. In some spots where the crust was less firm, perhaps where the snow was still soft from sun affect when the storm began, there was a bond to the crust but the slab was failing 5 cm above it. The ski down was tough, anything that had enough new snow immediately slid away, where there was less new snow the crust and debris underneath was challenging. It was still snowing hard when we left, looks like there is more to come. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Dense trees, Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Convex slopes, Steep slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Snow Conditions

Crusty, Hard, Powder, Wet.

Weather Conditions

Stormy.