Pea Gravel Ridge

Firm travel exists in the Newton drainage. We did find some softer pockets of faceting snow on shaded slopes, but these were very isolated thanks to our recent strong NW winds. The more common surface was scoured ice or stiff pockets of unreactive drifted snow. The softest (and most fun) surfaces we found existed on sun-exposed aspects after 10 am.

The snowpack situation is pretty straightforward right now. We have isolated softer surfaces in the form of old drifted snow or faceting grains hanging in the most shaded, sheltered terrain. Scoured surfaces and firm snow are the main story on most slopes until the sun works its magic on solars.  Solars started softening around 10 am, which provided more enjoyable sliding surfaces. By the time we left at noon, we had not seen any signs of wet loose.  

We observed a couple of small natural avalanches that appeared 1-3 days old in wind-loaded terrain. These were small and confined to rocky, leeward, upper elevation slopes above 7000 ft. These crowns acted as a good reminder that wind slabs may still lurk in that type of terrain. 

Additionally, we documented an older, but much larger D3 avalanche that likely ran during our natural cycle during the first week of January. Check out the avalanche database for more details.