Ice cold at Evelyn

Today we skied at Evelyn. Temps were cold, with -13 at the truck. Below-treeline coverage is good for this time of year, making sledding and skinning up to the top of run 1 easy. We dug a snowpit at 1550 m on a north aspect, just above the entrance to run 1, and found 130 cm of snow. The Nov 24th surface hoar layer is 60 cm below the snow’s surface here. In testing, we obtained moderate sudden-planar results in both compression and extended-column tests. We then skied back down run 1, freezing cold because it was -22 where we dug our snowpit. The winds were calm today, but we observed evidence of recent strong winds, with wind slab on all aspects at treeline and in the alpine. We did not observe any new avalanches.