Calm Day on Paola Ridge

We toured from the Dickey Creek trailhead up and over to Paola Ridge to monitor the persistent slab problem and to look for wind slabs from earlier in the week.

• Few signs of instability today: we had localized cracking at lower and middle elevations in small, isolated wind slabs deposited by south winds on cross-loaded easterly aspects. We triggered many small sluffs on steep slopes that ran on the Groundhog crust (<6000') or within the newer snow (>6000') on all aspects. Some isolated, localized collapsing in the weak, sugary snow under the Groundhog crust. This didn't concern us today because there is no real slab on top of this crust, but I will be paying attention the next time there is significant loading from new snow.
• We did 3 snowpack tests at middle elevations targeting the crust buried on 1/17 and the newer Groundhog Day crust. We got propagating results on in facets on top of the 1/17 crust in 2 locations ( east and north aspects) and propagating results in facets above the Groundhog Day crust in 1 location (east aspect). We got no direct feedback from the deeper weak layer: no cracking or whumpfing. There were no signs of recent avalanches failing on these layers.
• We kicked cornices on the top of Paola Ridge (north aspects deposited by south winds) with only small plates breaking off and sluffing for results.
• Very cold but calm, sunny, and super pleasant day.
• We skied the wind stripped, southerly aspect of Paola and then skied slopes up to 45 degrees in the trees back to the car with only small sluffing and low tide to manage. We ski cuts steeper slopes to trigger sluffs before skiing and avoided terrain traps that would increase the consequences of getting caught in a sluff.