Silver Sands early season

Great early season trail riding in Silver Sands. Temps dropped overnight to -10 for most of the day, scattered cloud and patchy fog. Large surface Hoar formation prevalent in multiple areas and aspects, but not everywhere, and is not yet buried. Overall a very shallow snowpack. Dug a pit at 1300m, SW aspect. Total depth of snow is 45 cm, with several weak layers down 8 cm, 13 cm, 16 cm, and one weak rain crust down 35 cm. All the weak layers were variations of meltform/breakable rain crust. 2 compression test results : CTE 6 down 8cm on a meltform/breakable crust, it reacted as a Sudden Planar result and CTM 15 down 13cm on another meltform/breakable rain crust, it reacted as a Resistant Planar. Air temp at pit was -9° C. Nice to be out again, but there isn’t really enough snow yet in Silver Sands to make it worthwhile.