General Observations

Skinned up around Rainbow ridge a bit. A big wind event was forecasted for the area, and it was definitely howling on the north side of the mountains, but rainbow ridge was surprisingly calm. Skiing up the creek gully to the west of the ridge, we did notice the top 3-4 inches had a tendency to slide every once in a while. Once we got off the west aspect and started climbing the north aspect we dug a snow pit at about 4500'. There was 50cm of snow, with the bottom 10cm being very weak faceted snow. There was a wind crust about 20cm up from the bottom, and everything above that was wet, loose snow, progressing from 1 finger to 4 finger. A quick column revealed a CT2 that failed at the bottom, and CT 11 about halfway up the snowpack. Upon pulling the column back we realized it was right behind a large rock which left a big gap in the snow. The ski down was awesome with the super fluffy snow, although there were some isolated high patches where the wind scoured away the snow.