Cold blower to coastal shmoo

<p>The day started out with cold, dry snow. Hand pit tests showed a 15cm slab of new snow sliding easily on older snow below. Below that another 15-20 of old snow moved more stubbornly above a breakable crust with 4cm of faceting grains on a top of a solid crust. We couldn’t get any results on these layers initially with ski tests on steep, low consequence slopes. We started out skiing sparsely treed south facing slopes, up to 35 degrees, but mostly 30 and under from 1300m down. Knowing the windslab, PWL & expecting significant warming we opted to stay out of TL & ALP terrain. By 12:30 our blower cold snow turned to warm heavy powder. Testing the same low consequence steep ski slopes on our next lap up we now observed the 15cm later collapsing and producing cracks under our skis. We went for one last low angle run on south facing slopes and then headed for north aspects, keeping it to 30 degrees and under. The north aspect snow was dryer as expected, but we could still produce easy sliding on the layer down 15cm both with skis and hand pit tests. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Mellow slopes, Sunny slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Steep slopes, Sunny slopes, Convex slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

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

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

Snow Conditions

Heavy, Deep powder.

Weather Conditions

Warm.