Nearly Reset Seaton

Riding quality was:

Good

Snow conditions were:

• Powder
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Dense trees
• Mellow slopes
• Open trees
• Sunny slopes

We stayed away from:

• Alpine slopes

The day was:

• Cloudy
• Stormy

Avalanche conditions

• Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Nearly reset at Seaton.

10cm of fresh snow at 15km kept the sleds cool as we made our way into Seton basin.

snow totals increased as we climbed and seemed to top out at 40cm above the Jan 26 crust at 1580m. Great to see this much new snow out here but with the winds, snow depths remain variable and it was a toss up between deep powder and lightly dusted melt freeze crust exposed in last weeks out flow winds.

It was stormy today and during our field work we gained another 5cm of snow with moderate gusting to strong south west winds continuing to build wind slabs in lee features. Anywhere we ventured with wind effect resulted in whumpfing and cracking.

In testing we had no results in our extended column test but did have a moderate result in a compression test down 20cm on facets and a hard result down 40 just below the top of the Jan 26 melt freeze crust facet combo.

Nearly reset but some more snow would be nice to avoid feeling the old rain runnels.