15-25°F
Mostly calm with moderate gusts from the northeast
Low visibility & shadowless vertigo inducing conditions
Light snowfall started at 4p
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Sunburst
Common uptrack
Parking in the Turnagain Pass corridor is limited
Weather
Snow surface
In the Alpine the riding was difficult on the leeward side (WSW aspect) with 2"-6" of wind stiffened surface snow above soft low density snow.
Below 2000' in the trees the top 2' of snow was right-side up.
While setting the up-track we encountered a few small pockets of wind slab on the Sunburst ridge - nothing more than 6" thick. It mostly crumbled beneath skis, but we had a couple spots where it cracked further ahead 5'. These wind slabs were sitting atop soft unconsolidated snow.
Snowpack
Sunburst at 3150'
WSW aspect
Ski/Boot pen.: 30cm/60cm
ECTP27 ↓45cm on 0.5-1mm MLK jr facets
ECTX
No evidence of the NYE crust
Sunburst at 1900'
West aspect
Ski/Boot pen.: 30cm/60cm
ECTP26 ↓45cm on 0.5-1mm MLK jr facets
2mm thick NYE crust ↓80cm surrounded by 1cm of loose facets (2mm) above and below
This was the greatest visibility we had - looks like north winds cross loaded gullies and scoured exposed areas in the Alpine elevations of Seattle Ridge.
Looking toward Magnum ridge from Sunburst - more scouring and cross loaded gullies.
Looking northwest toward Seattle Ridge. The visibility was vertigo inducing.
0.5-1mm Facets at failure plane in testpit at 3150'
Sunburst testpit at 3150' on WSW aspect
Flat light! Photo: S. Halverson