Not enough dust to hide that crust

Quick report

Weather

cloudy, sunny, warm, windy

Ride Type

alpineSlopes, convexSlopes, cutBlocks, denseTrees, mellowSlopes, openTrees, steepSlopes, sunnySlopes

Riding Quality

ok

Snow Conditions

crusty, powder

Everyone loves a spring powder day. With 20 cm of new snow on the station at Cain we had to go check it out. The wind had definitely moved the new snow around, it varied anywhere between 5 and 25 cm of new snow over the crust. While this made the skinning conditions great, it was just enough new snow to hide the refrozen chunder that lay below. These conditions made for surprising turns with hidden perils. While the wind had definitely built what looked like wind slabs, on slope testing we found there were no slab properties and the new snow was well bonded to the crust below. Short windows of sun amongst the clouds packed quite a punch, making the surface of the snow moist and sticky by midday. With this in mind, we headed into West Bowl and did our best to distinguish buried old avalanche debris from otherwise smooth surfaces.