Friday Pow Day at Brandywine

Skied a few laps around Brandywine Bowl on Friday. High point of the day was 1900 m on the ridge. Weather was beautiful. Mostly sunny with light cloud. Light wind with the occasional gust. No blowing snow. Terrific ski conditions in the alpine on polar/shaded aspects. Solar aspects got baked and were nasty, crusty, and covered in pinwheels. The main run down Brandywine Bowl got rather tracked out by the afternoon. Plenty of room for turns elsewhere. A few point releases seen on solar aspects from within the last 24hr Also a few small point releases triggered while skiing on convexities/thin snowpack areas on a polar aspect near ridge top while skiing. Possibly due to a light wind affect. Snow got noticeably heavier with a thin temperature crust below about 1600 m but still good ski conditions down to the meadows Surface hoar formation was observed in the alpine above 1700 m on polar/shaded aspects Parked below the steep corner with the truck canopy on the ground as it was rather icy. Some folks made it higher. Skinnable almost immediately above the car and carefully skiable most of the way down.

Weather was beautiful. Mostly sunny with light cloud and light wind with the occasional gust. No blowing snow.

E aspect 1700 m elevation CTE 9 BRK down 30 cm HS 130 HST 75 Very thin crust down 75 Fist density above crust 4F density slush/wet grains below crust. Would expect the wet snow below the crust to be much harder now (Saturday) than it was at the time of observation (12:00 pm Friday) due to the colder temps. Surface hoar formation on N aspects in the alpine Pinwheeling and point releases within the last 24hrs on solar aspects. Small point releases triggered while skiing on convexities/thin snowpack areas on a polar aspect near ridge top. Likely due to a light wind affect. No other signs of instability noted. Waist deep foot pen. I.e. you take off a ski to transition, sink, and question why you didn’t stomp out a platform