24 Dec 20011 - wind effect

I ended up on the Happo ridge with my friend Chika gathering data for JAN today. We didn't go higher than 2080m. Just about every elevation and aspect we looked at had some wind effected snow on it. I doubt there were more than 4 turns made in the same consistency. The blanket of powder from last week has been blown away, blown onto, or compressed in place. Overall it was pretty poor skiing for 1000m vertical. The best snow was down at the river, where we had no chance of crossing without wading and getting wet. We did not find any significant weak layers in the upper 100cm nor notable shears at 1900m on a NE aspect.

All of this is soon to be history as the forecast storm rolled in at midday and snowed steadily at 2cm/hr from then on, with plenty to come.

Today's photo: Chika gets sent new (expensive!) clothing from Mammut each season. This year her colours all match. After 500 days of backcountry use my Mammut wind shells has holes in the armpits at the stitches. Otherwise it is still ok.