Teddy trees and white queen

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Powder

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Open trees
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes
• Steep slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Cold

Skied from the resort down teddy bear trees to the clearing. New snow well bonded and no signs of wind loading below the ridge. Then hiked white queen to descend skiers left of black queen which also had great snow conditions. Returned over white queen and back into the resort ski way.

Snow was sat on a crust layer on the SW face of white queen so I did a quick hand shear test to gain some info. The block broke away at about 25-30cm depth and sheared right across on a weak layer, possibly surface hoar. It took a medium to hard pull to get the shear so we took conservative lines and spread out for the descent and had no other signs of instability on the way down. Other spots the snow was thinner, I think due to wind as the snow has fallen.