Riding with the Masses

Over 200 people riding up in Renshaw today saw the new powder from yesterday get tracked pretty fast. We still found some great pockets of powder to enjoy though. On the way in we saw the avalanche in the photo which appears to have slid on an early season rain crust at the base of the snowpack. We dug a pit at the treeline around 1800m elevation and found a weak layer of surface hoar buried under 20cm of light fluffy storm snow. We don't see this layer as a big problem at the moment with such a light load on it, but with more snowfall in the forecast we expect to see it become more reactive, especially in areas where the buried surface hoar crystals are quite large. It was windy at ridge tops with strong southerly winds loading snow into northerly slopes and building windslabs on those lee faces.