Cold Smoke

Today we skied in SE facing trees between 1900m and 1550m. At 1850m, we observed around 40cm of new soft snow on top of a stiffer layer about 10cm thick. Below this stiffer layer was 5-10cm of small-grained, facetted snow above a melt-freeze crust that was 1-2cm thick. Below the melt-freeze curst there were 15cm of very sugary, facetted snow above the thick, Feb 3rd melt-freeze crust. The upper facet/melt-freeze crust combo had hand-shear results. We heard a whumpf and felt a drop when we regrouped on the ridge near the top of our ski run. It was interesting as we did not get a settlement until the fourth person had arrived. We also observed one natural avalanche in north facing terrain off the backside of Castle. It was at around 1600m in rocky, steep terrain. Unclear if it was storm snow only or something deeper. Photo of crown included, did not observe the debris.