Mount Milhouse

It was pretty quiet at Allen Creek today. Seeing +7°C at the parking lot definitely gave us pause, but temps dropped to a pleasant +1°C around 1800 m, and a cool breeze kept the snow from getting too wet. Travel was easy with 20–50 cm of storm snow sitting on a decomposing crust. We poked around looking for surface hoar at treeline and in the alpine. It was present and notable (20+ mm) in sheltered treeline areas and largely blown away or degraded higher up. Test results on that layer were moderate to hard at both elevations. We didn’t see any new natural avalanches, though trees were shedding snow and there was some minor pinballing on solar aspects by early afternoon. All in all, with slightly above-freezing temps and a cooling wind, the snow stayed surprisingly good for sledding all day. Better than expected—which we’ll happily take as a win.