Warm in the whitepass!

With lots of new snow(37cm) and warm temperatures it was hard to believe we were in the white pass in January! The wind was blowing by mid morning and temperatures had risen to near 0 degrees. We found a few places in the lee of the wind (today that was north aspects) that had small and soft slabs that were ready to avalanche and did when we entered small test slopes(see photo). Places that had no recent wind effect were substantially better riding(see photo). In both sheltered and wind exposed areas you could still feel the old hard surface from before the storm.