Quick report
Skied E aspects of 4068 and 4600. Weather: 7F in lot at 0915. Strong inversion going on with temp rising to teens and low 20s as we gained elevation. Windless on the ascent, light wind (~5mph) when on the ridgeline. Sunny with cloudless skies. Temp was low 20s back in the Skeetawk lot at 1330. Snowpack: 1400 - 2300’: knife-hard unbreakable crust on all snow surfaces we traveled on, with visible wind effect. Suspect a combo of wind loading and rain/wet snow freezing. 2300’ - 2800’: lots of variability in this band. Varying from unbreakable to breakable crust, dust on crust, pockets of soft snow, some windslabs, etc. 2800’ - 4600’: soft settled/faceted powder except for the ridgelines and just under which were icy and wind affected. Snow quality was significantly better than we expected. Perhaps this zone was spared from the wind affect and/or faceting over the last week softened up the crusts/windslabs. On 4600 we did some digging. Just under the ridge it was 45cm. of soft right side up snow all the way to the ground. Further onto the face it was the storm snow atop a deteriorating crust/windslab and more snow underneath, generally right side up as identified by pole probe. But then again the problematic layer would be deeper than that. Skied conservatively, staying on slopes averaging 25-30 degrees. Did ski over short steeper convexities without any signs, but then again for a deep persistent slab harder to get signs of instability from normal travel.
Avalanche
Lots of natural avalanches from last storm visible across much of Hatcher.