It was sunny and we saw a bunny

AVCAN FORECASTER , Monday 6th January, 2025 4:15PM

With hopes of getting above the clouds and getting some alpine observations we headed to the RMR backcountry. We got up to 2350 m and had good skiing in cold, dry snow on north and south facing terrain. It was gloriously sunny above 2000 m once we got out of the valley cloud. Slopes directly in the sun still held dry surface snow in the afternoon. We only felt a noticeable, buried sun crust under our skis on very micro terrain. Wind was calm in the morning, but picked up a bit from the north in the afternoon. Evidence of old wind effect but no signs of wind moving snow today. We got some minimal cracking around our skis in little wind piles right at ridgetop, but didn't find any other signs of wind slab on our travels. In our quick snowpack tests we found a right side up snowpack with no slab properties, which matched what we felt under our skis.

Moderate shear on a mid-storm interface that is unlikely to persist. Also there are no slab properties above this layer at the moment.