Emerald Toodling

Spent a few days poking around Emerald Peak and the Tophat. We counted 36 people doing the Tophat on Saturday, party on Wayne! Inconsistent gusty moderate winds from the SW Saturday and Sunday scoured exposed features, ridgelines and my face...but protected areas at all elevations held great skiing. Protected areas held 25-50cm of faceted snow sitting over a varitable plethora of surfaces (windbuff, suncrust and surface hoar). We observed cracking over the sun crust(TL), and evidence of surface creep above the SH in a BTL start zone.

Steep solar aspects at TL had buried sun crust below the faceted HST (30-45cm). This interface was consistently cracking on us when breaking trail. Finished the weekend working in a surface hoar factory (BTL N aspect, 2000m) held 40cm of faceted HST above buried SH. The start zone showed interesting signs of snow creep. No movement on this interface while skiing. Sure wouldn't want to be in either of these places when it gets re-loaded or warms up.