Christiana Ridge

<p>Had a great day up Christiana Ridge on Saturday. With forecasted warming, and lots of solar input, we decided on this location to stick to treed relatively mellow slopes as close to North aspect as possible. The first group in before us evidently didn't know the traditional skin track route up Christiana Ridge from the creek, and put in a very aggressive track up the steepest part of the slope. This made for slow going, and in hindsight it would have been easier to put in our own track on the edge of the mellower terrain to climber's right despite having to break trail. With the warming temps and strong solar, significant tree bombing started around 11 or noon, but the ENE slope we skied was protected enough to hold excellent snow down to 1300 or so. Below that the snow became very sticky and heavy. No signs of instability noted where we skied.</p>

Terrain Ridden

Dense trees, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Sunny slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

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

Snow Conditions

Wet, Powder.

Weather Conditions

Warm, Sunny.