Quick report
I grabbed Joe from the Mount Hood zone, and we took a walk up East Peak into Cement Basin this morning. Snowfall throughout the morning ranged from graupel to large flakes to something almost snain-like. Due to the recent spike in human-triggered avalanche activity, we kept it fairly tight and didn't jump on too many test slopes, but did see just the slightest bit of cracking on uptrack tests near ridgelines.
On slopes that often see direct sunshine, you could feel a subtle temperature crust below the new snow. As the day wore on, the upper snowpack warmed, and handpits failed more consistently over this crust.
As we descended East Peak toward the parking lot, the snow got progressively heavier and became noticeable while skiing below roughly 5900'. A bit more slabby.
No red flag signs of instability.Weather
There were snow showers for the majority of the morning. There were a few gusts of wind on the East Peak ridgeline, but otherwise, it was calm. There was a noticeable slow warming trend.
Snowpack
The upper snowpack over the AR crust is generally rightside up. We were able to identify interfaces, melt-freeze crusts, and old wind slabs within this past week's snow with compression, tilt, and shear tests, but none of them showed much in the way of propagation during extended column tests.
The AR crust looked better than what I observed last week, but does still have some softer snow above and within it, depending on where you look. No notable results on the AR crust in deep ECT tests.
Storm interfaces were generally at 17, 30, and 50 cm below the surface, depending on the aspect.
Avalanche
No new avalanches were observed.