Heather Meadows - Austin Pass

Short tour to observe avalanche activity from the latest atmospheric river. At mid elevations, avalanche danger seemed confined to slopes below steep rocky terrain, cliffs, and glide cracks - basically lingering instability where wet snow no longer wants to stick to the rocks below. Felt it would be quite difficult to trigger any sort of avalanche today, as the upper snowpack was more consolidated than would normally be expected after this amount of rain. Upper elevations definitely saw rainfall (as evidenced by the amount of rilled/runneled snow up), but also suspect those same areas picked up more precipitation in the form of snow rather than rain. 

The pattern of natural avalanche activity seemed sporadic. There are definitely some big, chunky debris piles out there, but not the expected quantity. Not entirely sure why the upper snowpack tolerated the rainfall so well. Riding conditions were not good, but at least the snow surface was trending toward consolidation, so descending didn't feel like an injury-provoking endeavor. The best conditions will be where you find smooth snow surfaces. Good luck with that one . . . 

Heavily rain-affected snow surfaces at all elevations. In a wind-loaded location, found melt forms (wetted front) down 30cm over a mix of moist rounds and melt forms down to 50cm. From there, P to K small, moist rounds down to 1/3 crust at 110cm. Ski pen 5cm + boot pen 60cm.