Strong Refreeze with Dust on Crust Conditions on Chickadee Ridge

Cold temperatures and clear skies last night led us to think that the refreeze would be strong. Since N and NE winds and cool daytime highs were forecasted we thought that a firm icy crust might exist in most places. For this reason, we wanted to explore lower angle slopes to manage the risk of long sliding falls. We wanted to see how much the strong April sunshine might thaw the overnight refreeze despite the wind and temperature.

As expected a thick, firm, refrozen crust existed on all aspects in the Chickadee Ridge area this morning. We made our way to some wind sheltered, low angle, S facing, fully sun-exposed slopes thinking that if anything would soften it would be these kinds of slopes. We found that even those had only softened a minuscule amount by noon. These slopes did have a more uniform dusting of new snow so travel conditions turned out better than expected. When we moved back over to the northerly aspects we found firm icy crusts exposed by the NE winds. These did not soften at all before 1 pm. While we did not find any signs of snowpack instabilities, we still chose to travel on lower angle slopes due to the icy conditions.