Saved by the clouds!

Bashed our way through the whoops to Lost Johnny today.

We talked about the possible warming and the hazards that might provide in the upper reaches, however, temps stayed below freezing until our exit around 1 pm and kept the snow dry for us today!

• The freezing rain event from friday(2/4) put down a 1 cm thick crust on all aspects, all elevations.  The major difference in aspects/elevations was how much snow the crust had ontop of it, sheltered places had a few inches and windward slopes were scoured.  
• We saw one shallow wind slab fail just below an exposed ridgeline. This slab was harmless in size and only a few inches thick. 
• We did find buried surface hoar (down 35 cm), however, it was not reactive in our tests.
• Wind loading had occured at the Swan Crest.  
• Winds today were moderate with some snow still being transported.  
• Riding was good as longs as you were able to deal with the grabby nature of the crust.
• After assessing test slopes and digging some holes we felt comfortable riding bigger terrain. We observed no shooting cracks while sidehilling steep slopes. 

more pictures soon.