...But A Lot of Personality

Day off hot lap in the Middle Fork.

• We found a thin, but hard crust on all aspects above 4000 feet. The crust got thicker as we gained elevation.
• There's plenty of low density graupel and decomposing snow flakes under the crust. A millimeter or two of snow sits on top of it.
• The big avalanche that tore down from Nyack last week (already reported) terminated at 4500 feet. Several D2s also ran from south facing chutes, probably around the same time.
• Previous winds had left their mark at all elevations. We saw dunes and drifts, but all were soft and the only cracking we saw was in the new crust.
• We found the New Year's crust down around 120cm with frequent pole probing.
• We turned around at 6000 feet where the terrain becomes rocky and complex and it would be more difficult to avoid trigger points for the persistent slab problem. We were comfortable skiing very steep, mid elevation terrain while minimizing our exposure to alpine avalanche path runouts.
• It wasn't exactly pretty skiing through that crust, but it gave the snow a lot of personality.