Chilly Shenanigans

Cold, moderate, northerly winds were still blowing snow on our little tour today. It seems as though they had already used up most of the snow available on upwind slopes. They had used it to build slabs and dunes all across the southerly slopes we ascended.

• Wind affected snow was widespread. In most places the snowpack is still shallow enough that wind slabs were anchored in place by bush, trees, and logs. We stomped on a few road cuts and easily triggered small slabs or got shooting cracks. These slabs were soft to hard (4F to 1F) sitting on very soft storm snow. They were between 4 and 8 inches deep.
• Probing around with our poles we could feel a similar structure on south and west facing slopes to the one we found in the Lake McDonald area last week: soft, recent snow over a hard crust (probably buried on 10/21), more soft dry snow over an older crust (10/13) just above the ground. 
• Coverage, and winds, increased quickly above about 6,000 feet, though obstacles were still lurking everywhere. The deepest snow we found was about 20 inches at our high point of 6,700 feet.

With all of the wind-affected snow and the snow sharks lurking, we played on low angled terrain and had a lovely time with little hassle. We took off our skis and walked the last 700 vertical or so where gravel and bush were barely covered over.