Crazies - West Slope

Quick observation from some exploratory skiing in the Crazies today. Toured in from Cottonwood Creek and followed a lower angle shoulder to gain the ridgeline between Pauline Creek and Little Cottonwood Creek. A bit schwacky down low and quite faceted. Found supportable skiing above ~7800' all the way up to the wind scoured ridgeline at 9300'. No recent avalanches, collapses, or cracking observed, aside from a couple of small predictable ~3" thick fresh wind slabs near the ridge top.

Temps hovered around 20F all day with moderate WNW winds that died after 1pm and variable cloud cover (overcast one minute and blue skies the next).

Snowpack was ~70cm deep (on average) and had 15cm of new/decomposing snow sitting on a mostly supportable 4F+ layer of rounds above a mix of F facets and a decomposing melt freeze crust. Quick pit @8350' SE 28* slope - ECTN10@55cm on hardness change (new snow) & ECTP14 (and ECTP21) @35cm on facets above the melt-freeze crust. To mitigate the persistent slab problem, we kept it low angle and avoided areas we predicted would harbor more cohesive/connected slabs.