Skied a north facing shot outside of Essex, dropping from 6000' to 5200', with no signs of instability. It was quite a protected, mellow and heavily timbered slope. The climb from highway elevation to 6K was challenging for at least a thousand feet; the new snow was sitting on a very firm crust. We then climbed a south face to 7000' and found super high-quality skiing on that same aspect. Dug a put at 6700', south facing, and found 245 cm of snow. Ice crust was about 3-4 cm thick and down 50 cm; we found no reactivity on this layer. Our only result was ECTN21, down 30 cm, at the new snow interface. Keeping the slope angles tame served us well today- with gorgeous views, mostly light winds with moderate gusts, we were all smiles. Oh yeah- it was cold!
