Brooks NE Shoulder

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Powder

We rode:

• Convex slopes
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees

The day was:

• Cold

Avalanche conditions

• 30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Did some laps up and down the NE shoulder of Brooks Monday morning. Temps were - 7C in the morning and warmed up to around 0 by 3pm. Snow in the morning was very sugary and light the entire way out from ravens.

From the col down to 100m below the col was 20-30cm of great light snow on top of "the" crust. Actually some surprisingly fabulous turns were had up there.

Unfortunately, as soon as you got under the bigger trees it turned into a dust on crust. There was a couple cm layer of the same sugary snow but underneath was really crunchy and refrozen tree drippings.

We set off a couple sz 1 loose dry sloughs that slid quite a ways on slopes steeper than 30degrees. The open areas of the col were also noticibly wind affected. It was difficult to tell if we were seeing wind slab or wind scouring (maybe a mixture of both with the forecasted wind direction change overnight).