Today Dani and I headed back up Ferry for another attempt at finding the longest sustained fall line down Broken Nose.  I think we found a contender.  Coverage was good top to bottom and an intense temperature inversion made it a miserable -17*F down low but a balmy +20*F up top.  We left Maestra at home because the snow down low was too cold for puppy paws today.

The intense sun combined with the inversion was causing some of the heavily snow encrusted trees up top to drop their loads and the snow on the upper half of the ridge was changing: whether or not it crusts up remains to be seen.  Surface hoar growth on the WSW aspects we skied seemed limited to the lower faces where colder temps lingered all day.  On shady aspects at all elevations the surface hoar was growing pretty well.

The deep portions of the Palisades Reservoir which had been totally clear the evening before were developing a layer of ice in spots.  The fog rising off the reservoir looked really impressive from Ferry Peak and made it really easy to spot where the temperature inversion occurred, perhaps 1000′ off the valley floor.

It sounds like a big group took a look at the East side of Ferry today so I’ll probably go see what there is to see there tomorrow.  It’s supposed to be -20*F again tonight so hopefully that wonderful temperature inversion persists.