Tiptoe at Window

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Powder

We rode:

• Convex slopes
• Cut blocks
• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Sunny

We spent the day sledding around Window Mountain. Access was smooth, there is 5-10 cm of crust/ice on the Atlas trail, just enough to make it work with some chainsawing.

The day was a mix of sun and cloud, winds were light from the south. Air temperature was -8 at 2000 m (at noon). We were pleased to find 12 cm of new snow on the surface. Below, the weekend rain event has formed a new 3 cm crust.

The late January persistent weak layer is down ~50 cm. This layer produce hard results in compression tests, but we could not get it to propagate.

We observed numerous size 1 loose dry avalanches in steep alpine terrain. As well as one size 1.5 wind slab on an alpine east facing slope.