Sunny and cold. Temps in teens all day, windy at Crow Pass but calm elsewhere.
Observation: Girdwood
Location: Crow Pass Area
Toured up Crow Pass to Raven glacier. The trail from the summer parking lot to Crow Pass is a combination of breakable sastrugi, ice, concrete and slide for life traverses the entire way. Very challenging skiing. Once you reach Crow Pass the there is about 4” of new snow on top of crust. Once we dropped off of Crow Pass onto the protected Raven glacier we found 5” of soft snow on top of a nice supportable base. On SW facing slopes above Raven glacier (4500’) there was a 2” crust over deep faceted snow. On steeper south facing slopes there was about 4” of snow from Sunday’s storm on top of a consistent base.
Weather
Snow surface
Ranged from ice and sastrugi in the Crow Pass area to nice consistent soft powder on the protected glacier to sun crust over styrofoam on steeper south facing lines.
Trail up Crow Pass. Boilerplate snow with several exposed areas where a slip would send you tumbling into the creek 500' below.
What the snow looks like in the Crow Pass area.
Photo of conditions on South facing slopes. Temps are remaining cold and even by late afternoon we were seeing very few signs of rollerballs.
SW slopes around 4500' are covered with a stiff ski supportable crust. Some afternoon roller balls in these lower zones.
The big picture of Crow Pass conditions. This area received about 7" in the last storm. Things to note: Old crown above Crystal lake (top right); N winds and wind scoured ridges (top left).