Crystal backcountry - silver basin, Super Bowl, bear gap, pickhandle bowl

Quick report

Generally stable conditions. No signs of instability . We observed terrain up to 6300’ - Super Bowl, bear gap, north side pickhandle. Very good stability - no signs of instability observed in upper snowpack. We observed one older (maybe a couple days old?) small 3-4” crown (est 15’ wide) in very steep north facing terrain.

Weather

Cloud Cover

scattered

Wind Loading

light

Snowpack

North facing slopes between above 5400’ still holding 3-6’ variable cold snow overlying 3cm crust with 40cm progressively harder F / 4F bonded well to the robust 10-15 cm K hard crust. 1F to P rounds beneath that. Low angle slopes seemed to ski the best. Anything veering much off of due north formed crusts. some isolated light blowing snow in open exposed north facing slopes . Pockets of weak surface snow mixed with identified small surface hoar on sheltered shaded slopes above 5600’ - A couple pockets of more defined / preserved .5- 1cm SH near 5800’ in sheltered area. Steeper solar slopes softened in spots to superficial corn. Wind and diffused sun limited significant warming of snow surface