Crust on Crust with Cornices.

Riding quality was:

Terrible

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Hard

We rode:

• Alpine slopes
• Convex slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Windy

We went for a walk in the backcountry near RMR today. After a few days of sunshine and high freezing levels, the fast moving cold front last night brought a strong north wind and drastically colder temperatures with only a trace of new snow. What does this equate to? Low avalanche hazard and challenging skiing.

With no sun in the forecast, cold temps, and wind, softening of the hard crust was not in the cards today and any powder snow would have been crusted by the recent warm weather.

So, we opted for more of a mountain travel day. We didn't observe any signs of recent avalanche activity. The surface crust was thick and supportive, which means avalanche activity is very unlikely.

We did observe numerous large and overhanging cornices which we stayed well back from while traveling up the ridgetop.

Cornices and challenging ski conditions were the primary hazards on our minds today.