Observation: Turnagain

No surprises today on eddies– huge wind deposit on lee ward slopes (NE). Very heavy/wet snow to the alder fields, then quickly dried above
that. Every rollover steeper than 25 degrees could pop a 4-6 inch wind slab. The trees were
amazing, four feet of new snow in places. The new snow is heavy- we could observe the
settling/creep at the base of the trees on each lap- pulling 3-4 inches downslope by the end of
our day. There were several cm-scale cracks on the sastrugi ridge. We didn’t go anywhere near
the windward faces, and I won’t tomorrow either. Oh- the wind-stripped ridge, even at the
upper tree elevation, had a surprising rain-like crust. The other guys didn’t think it could be a
rain crust because the temps stayed high during the storm, but it didn’t look like rime to me.
The crust was ~4mm thick. I haven’t been out enough to know if it was from the last storm.

-Luc