Crown Jewels

Today we rode up towards Crown Mountain for the first time this season. Snow coverage is thin below 1600 m but improves rapidly above! Harmer road is still being plowed and has active industrial traffic, be sure to use your radio if you are headed out this way! We are excited to report the day was cool, -6.6 at 2100 m and -1 in the valley. Light to moderate wind from the SW, overcast clouds all day and snowing about 1 cm per hour! Winter has returned! Above 1800 m there is 30-60 cm of wind affected new snow. Snowpack depths range from 1-2 m with windward features being scoured back and lee features exhibiting deposition of storm snow up to 1 m deep. We saw limited new avalanche activity, one size 1.5 storm slab from yesterday on a NE aspect at 2200 m. We had column test results in our snowpit, easy to moderate collapses within the storm snow. No propagating results from ECT. A deep tap test of the PWL down 150 cm revealed a moderate sudden collapse occurring on 2-3 mm rounding facets over a crust. Overall we were impressed with the coverage and riding quality in this area!