Seattle Ridge

We got a good look at a lot of the terrain on the back side of Seattle Ridge today. We rode up to the Headwall, dipping into Warm-Up and Triangle bowls along the way. The northerly winds from earlier in the week had gotten to the higher terrain on that south end of the ridge, which made surfaces much more variable than the north end of the pass. We skied a few runs in Warm-Up and then moved north to Jr's. There are a ton of tracks in Main Bowl and Jr's. The foot or so of 'new' snow from last week is faceting out, making for fast-running sluffs in steep terrain. With the firm surfaces below the low density snow, conditions are currently better for skiing than they are for riding snowmachines. That said, it's all pretty fun right now.

Short (15-20') shooting cracks in a shallow, soft wind slab just below a southwest-facing corniced ridge in Warm-Up Bowl.

Up to a foot of faceting snow on top of firm older surfaces. It seemed like surfaces had been more wind-affected at higher elevations closer to the headwall and more sheltered farther to the north along Seattle Ridge.

Current snow surfaces have been faceting during the cold, clear weather this week. It makes for fun skiing, as long as you are aware of the fast-moving, easy to trigger sluffs.