January 22, 2017, Silver Peak

Well we never really ventured off the nordic trails,  - Once you started to get around towards Ollalie Meadows the trees were covered in 3" of ice and the ice layer was very prominent and bulletproof. That mixed with some consistent wind gave variable conditions off the nordic trails with some solid and exposed ice chunks in many locations and wind slabs in others ( though the meadow is too mellow to judge any avy conditions).  Don't know what it was like higher as we never really went above 4000' but the contrast between the ice there and closer to the Summit was drastic.  Closer to the summit had some nice dust on a crust layer, but the crust wasn't bullet proof ice.  Turned into a nice walk in the woods with some inbounds touring.   Can't recall ever experiencing that drastic of a difference in ice buildup at similar elevations right around the corner from each other.