January 24, 2005, East Pk

Blue skies and no one else at the upper lot at CM made for a pleasant day.  Mod winds, mostly up high, and a layer of crust were the only down side.  Nice pow on the backside summit lured us into the back bowl, but it must have been wind deposite, because dropping down we found a layer of crust even in the shade.  Turned ok, just wasn't the pow we hoped for.  The front side though rewarded us with sun warmed butter and the coverage down low was good enough for a pretty decent ride all the way to the car.  Main point is that the arrival of new snow is going to be on crust even up to 6700ft.  Great views of all the southern volcanoes, Olympics, and Stuart, Daniel, Hinman.