Weekly conditions report from Wa Pass

Good skiing and very good stability right now, but that might change on Monday/Tuesday (at least the stability part).

www.ncmountainguides.com/2013/01/03/back...s-report-jan-3-2012/

As of thurs. 1/3/12 there is widespread hoar frost to 6mm from clear wed. night. There is also a sun crust on S.W. afternoon sun exposed slopes . Observed a  skin track in 1st. bowl that climbed the entire avalanch runout path , WOW!  ,  Be safe ,      X   

OOps , should be 1/3/13 X.

Updated observations from Jan 4 in the hairpin valley. We picked up 10 cms of new snow overnight. Moderate winds with the new snow have changed the ski quality in open terrain above 6,000'. Wind effected snow and shallow wind slabs were found on both sides of the valley (slightly less on the NE facing terrain). Some shooting cracks were observed in isolated pockets of wind slab. We looked for the recent surface hoar in several locations but could not find it. It may have been destroyed by the wind but it has probably been buried intact in a few locations. Either way this new snow and wind slabs are sitting on faceted snow from the recent cold weather.

A note on the telemetry at WA Pass. It looks like the precip gauge was out for a little while. I believe a crew was sent up there today and fixed it late this morning. This outage makes it look like the wind came in well before the snow but the wind and snow actually came in at the same time.