Sunshine & Snotsicles

It warmed up to a balmy -17.5C in the Torpy today which felt practically tropical after the week of cold. The alpine has been hammered pretty hard by recent north-easterly wind carving out a lot of fantastic snow sculptures or "sastrugi" which looked neat, but didn't make for good sledding. That same wind had built slabs of wind deposited snow on south and west facing slopes. Our tests showed these wind slabs have potential to be triggered by riders (ECTP 11). We also had the odd shooting crack on those same slopes, especally between tracks. We found the best riding was in lower tree line areas where the powder was still unaffected by wind and super deep!