Boulder Ridge

I skied up to Boulder Ridge today. It was cold at sunrise -20 C. The day was sunny, calm & clear w/ a super gentle breeze from the NW. Dug a pit at treeline ~1500m on a North facing 35 deg slope, Air temp felt about -15 C. HS was 180cms in this spot. Extended Column Test initiated a fracture on the recent crust that is 25 cms down w/ propagation running halfway across. I did not dig all the way down to observe the Oct crust...days are short this time of year. On North slopes this ~3cms thick crust was supportive and did not break when skiing w/ sluff running on top on steeper grades. The skiing was 20-30cms of powder on North aspects from below Treeline to above Treeline however the cement-ice forest btwn 800m and 1100m was on the upper limit of classic survival skiing. The FSR has a blowdown of trees around 2km which requires skirting around it for about 75m through tight trees--which has turned sledders back. New moon @ Solistice sure is pretty in pink skies. Sunset - 19 C.