A Three Hour Tour

Went for a short, mid day, tour on my last day off expecting some sun and a little wind up high.

• Strong winds mixed down to lower elevations, transporting snow and making thin wind slabs soft and hard at all elevations. For all the blowing snow, fresh deposits seemed to have little energy and we only got minor cracking at kick turns on steeper slopes.
• Prevailing winds were westerly, but swirled across the terrain affecting many aspects. That combined with the flat light made the loading pattern difficult to indentify.
• In hand pits we found a combination of heavily rimed snow and near surface facets under recently wind-affected snow. None of our hand pits pulled out with planar shears or whole blocks. We didn't see any preserved surface hoar.
• Air temps were warm, but clouds increased by about noon limiting snow surface warming. Most solar aspects were crusty and stayed frozen except just above Hwy 2 where we saw a few rollers late morning. But then again, we left by early afternoon and would have missed the brunt of major warming.
• With all the blowing snow and poor visibility we stuck to sheltered slopes at mid and lower elevations where we found no instabilities. I suspect that's where the best riding snow was today anyway. Our up track was filled in as soon as we got back down out of the trees.