3 days of bliss at Wheeler

Jan 14: Rode Avalanche Crest. Multiple groups dropping in that day, slough management was name of the game dropping over the convexities, but no active slabs observed. East faces felt scoured and west faces felt loaded. Observed some old size 1-1.5 slabs on mostly East to South faces around the Avalanche Mtn bowl. Likely slabs from the last storm cycle. The last couple hundred meters are still a bit hairy and were maybe the most hazardous part of the descent besides the sloughing at the top. Calm winds all day. Jan 15: Attempted Perley Rock but aborted mission due to timing and seeing how hairy the treeline approach was. Settled on riding Practice slopes. No instability observations. Biggest hazards were alder bashing not getting sucked into the gullies/creeks. Calm winds all day. Jan 16: Woke up to snowing S-1, accumulating to ~5cm by the time we got back to the car 3pm. Wind and snow picked up in the early afternoon. Rode practice slopes again and dug a pit, results as follows: 1700m, SW aspect, 36deg slope, HS~150cm. - 10cm thick complex ice crust about 60 down. Seemed to bond well to the snow on top. - ECTX. No results. - CTH30 ~60 down. Non-planar break. * Pit location could have been skier compacted in the past, disguising our results.