Variable Valhallas

<p>We ventured into the valhallas today, determined to find dry snow. At low elevations the snow was still wet and soggy, and today's continued light rain did not help. Observed several loose wet on to the forestry road from the last few days, out of steep and rocky features. At higher elevations lots of small loose wet and rollerballing was seen from steep terrain. The surface crust is 2-3cm thick at 1700m and disappears around 1900m, becomes heavy pow but still good skiing!! We saw several natural storm slabs, likely from yesterday, between 2200-1700m. Several avalanche paths had crowns mid path and we couldn't see much of the start zones due to poor visibility. We dug at 1900m on an East aspect: a non propagating result was seen below the storm snow (down 30cm) and a propagating result was seen on what we think is the Feb 15 crust, down 55. We dug again at 2150 on a north east, and got non propagating results at the same depths. This kept our terrain choices a little conservative, we skied mainly open mellow trees and ventured into a few steeper features and more open slopes one at a time, with no cracking or results as we skied. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Mellow slopes, Open trees, Steep slopes.

Terrain Avoided

Convex slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

Slab avalanches today or yesterday.

Rapid temperature rise to near zero degrees or wet surface snow.

Snow Conditions

Heavy, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Foggy, Warm, Wet.