28 Dec 2011 - alpine

I climbed from the valley floor to 2200m today in the JP region, quite a long trip taking 5 hours over several kilometers. The best snow by far was in areas where there had been no wind. Similar reports from the Tengpara area: there has been wind in the alpine and it is pretty packed down, scoured or loaded in places. Overall poor skiing on very variable snow. However not uncommon for the Hakuba alpine. The stability in my area seemed ok with no direct evidence of instability observed, no natural avalanches etc. I definitely found regular patches of thin wind slab from te previous NW winds. Most striking was how much the powder form the last two day has settled, We have warm snow and warm air temps (it was -7.5C at 2200m at 1400hrs). Our snowpack looses air content fast! For those after powder, or at least soft deepish snow: below tree line on shaded slopes, there is loads of it. Sunny slopes will now have a thin sun crust on them.