Bearpaw

There was a lull in the multi day storm Sunday morning so I went out to investigate the new snow layer and how it was bonding to the underlying layers. 

 I had limited exposure on steep terrain, and didn't see or trigger any new avalanches. In several pits that I dug I found only one with a layer of buried surface hoar and more developed near surface facets that yielded results.

I saw an old natural slab avalanche that had failed in a wind slab, likely the previous dayIn addition to the one obvious slab avalanhw, I saw two other subtle debris deposits on east and northeast aspects near the bottom of the upper elevation band. Otherwise, from about 5000ft and lower I saw old rollerballs and small wet loose slides from the previous day. 

One natural avalanche observed.

The main basin at Bearpaw had received about 6" of new snow in the last 36 hours. Snow was moist-wet or had either wet snow or a thin crust on the surface up to about 5200'. Above that elevation, there was no surface crust and snow was mainly wind-affected and heavy but dry, 4F. 

I hunted for buried surface hoar that had been found on snow surfaces around the zone on Wednesday.  In a few hand pits and a test pit I neither saw or had results indicating a concerning buried surface hoar layer. However, one hand pit which I further investigated had an obvious failure on the buried weak layer. The location wasn't too far from the toe of the avalanche debris from the one natural avalanche that I saw.