AST Pow Day

<p>We had a AST 1 group out on Sunday riding open, tree line glades to 35 degrees. We had 3cm of snow through the day and it was snowing 1cm/hour when we left at 5pm. We had a steady light wind from the southeast for most of the day. This wind was not enough to move snow at the elevations we rode at. The upper snowpack consists of 20cm of light powder in sheltered areas and wind pressed powder in more exposed areas. Cross loaded gullies had buried windslab which were not reactive to skier traffic. We dug multiple snow profiles at tree line elevations and snowpack tests gave no results. We did find the mid Dec facet layer down 60-70cm in an area with 160cm of snow but it was all we could do to make it fail and we could only get it to fracture with highly aggressive shovel prying and body checks. Even then the layer produced only irregular breaks and not clear shears. We had no alpine observations due to limited visibility but the wind was stronger up high and wind slab formation was likely more prevalent up there. The group determined the avalanche danger to be moderate at tree line elevations with rapidly bonding recent storm snow. We observed to signs of recent avalanche activity. </p>

Terrain Ridden

Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Steep slopes.

Snow Conditions

Crusty, Powder, Wind affected.

Weather Conditions

Cloudy, Stormy.