Getting It While We Can...

Today's trip up Harvey pass area revealed shooting cracks within the first few steps we took after leaving our sleds parked around 1850m. The recently buried surface hoar was down around 15cm and is looking like it's going to be quite the problem when it gets buried a little deeper and has a more significant slab of snow over it. We were unable to find the surface hoar above 2000m and hence the shooting cracks we had been experiencing also stopped. Higher up, above the north facing chutes we noticed wind slabs up to 50cm deep in the start zones. The only avalanches we noted before the fog set in were two size 1.5 wind slabs on east facing alpine slopes. We picked a mellower line to ski down, not trusting the wind slabs in the steep chutes and had some great turns back to the sleds.