Still dry powder on the Popes Peak North Glacier today with the recent 40 cm of storm snow allowing for some excellent skiing!

Travel up through the trees on Narao Shoulder was fairly easy in the morning with a light freeze and breakable crust. We did not need ski crampons though that may change quickly. The ski down through the trees near noon was a bit rugged as the snow warmed up and softened, but this may improve as the surface snow settles. Probing on the glacier showed over 270 cm in all areas probed. No significant weaknesses or wind effect observed in the upper snow pack on the glacier.

Solar aspects were getting quite wet when we skied down and anything other than due North aspects above 2100 m had some form of temperature crust near the surface. Lots of pin wheeling today on steep solar aspects.

One size 2.5 cornice triggered slab avalanche was observed on the ridge between Narao and Popes that likely came down yesterday. The cornice took out a slab to ground in steep rocky terrain immediately below it, and a small deeper slab lower down in the path. Several loose wet avalanches on solar aspects up to size 2 observed starting in the late morning as the sun came out.