Summit Creek Moonscape

We sledded into Summit Creek expecting to see new avalanche activity on steep south slopes above the drainage. While we didn't find this, we did find terrible wind crusted snow from valley bottom all the way to 1600 m with very few redeeming pockets of preserved powder. New wind slab has formed in south facing lee features. There is the possibility that this new windslab layer is sitting on a weak layer above hard, wind-affected snow. Temperatures were about -19 at 1600 m with a sub -30 windchill. It'll be a good weekend to carefully plan trips to the conditions and bring lots of tea and hand-warmers.