Creamy turns

Today we rode into the northern Swan to assess recently formed wind slabs and get a grasp on that part of the range. Again, we were pleased to see good coverage, right-side-up storm snow, and great riding conditions.

• Total snowpack height averaged 2 to 3 feet deep at the upper elevation band. Roughly 10 inches of recent snow sits on a freezing rain crust.
• We observed no recent avalanches, no shooting cracks, and felt no collapses.
• Minimal cornice development along exposed ridgelines. We were able to release one small cornice that did not trigger a slab below. 
• Snowpack tests all showed non-propagating results. Failure planes were the freezing rain crust that formed on the 7th and just above the ice mass at the bottom of the snowpack. 
• We had no results with ski cuts on steep break-overs. 

With no observed signs of instability, we felt comfortable riding one at a time in avalanche-prone terrain with clean runouts.