Perley Rock

Riding quality was:

Amazing

Snow conditions were:

• Powder

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Mellow slopes
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Foggy
• Sunny
• Warm

Avalanche conditions

• Slab avalanches today or yesterday.
• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

One of two groups to ski Perley Rock today. Temps were warmer than expected with the cloud/fog layer, which burned off around 12. No notable wind. Parking lot was busy (as expected).

Ski conditions were great, the combo of snow quality and visibility later in the morning/afternoon was pretty unreal!

Observations:

- crowns on most convex rolls along the valley bottom creek, consistent with recent MINs. Unsure if it was on the late Jan SH or just the recent storm snow, but looked like there were a couple different layers

- very minor cracking and maybe a little settlement skinning above an unsupported pillow, to the right of and below the cliffs/waterfall at 1700m

- quick hand shear on the moraine (2100m, W/NW aspect) showed two layers in the upper storm snow: first ~30-40ish cm down with fist snow above, and a second layer ~15cm below with 4F snow above. Upper layer was a little more resistant planar, lower layer was a bit more of an uneven break

- localized wind affect on top of perley rock (textured, drum like, stiffer/slabby). The snow in the final ascent ramp was also a bit heavier on our ski down, presumably from sun/warming

- from afar we noticed loose dry debris (size 1+), from steep NE facing cliffs off Lookout Mountain, above the young's traverse uptrack. One group took a higher route climber's right that ended up traversing through the debris. Most other parties seemed to have ascended lower and further climber's left, well away from the cliffs (unlikely any could have seen the debris from below)