Needle Pk

Riding quality was:

OK

Snow conditions were:

• Crusty
• Hard
• Wind affected

We rode:

• Mellow slopes

The day was:

• Cold

Took a day trip up Needle - overall conditions are pretty bad. Skin up through the trees wasn’t much fun very icy and all existing skin tracks have been bombed out by snowshoers. In the alpine it was crusty/hard conditions on basically all aspects - pretty solid sun crust on solar aspects. A stiff easterly winds had stripped typically wind loaded aspects. Noticed some debris from cornice falls on Flatiron but these were all several days old if not more. No signs of instability - we didn’t dig a pit as we kept to very mellow terrain as result of the conditions.

All in all the whole area is in the need of a reset. If you’re deciding whether it’s worth it - I’d say stay in bed until new snow falls and buries the abnormal wind effect.