Castle and Andesite

4 to 6 inches of settled storm snow rested on top of old crusts in the Castle Peak area. In sheltered areas, the storm snow remains soft and unconsolidated. On NW-N-NE aspects, weak snow (facets) existed underneath the crust. Today, hand pits, ski cuts, and general observations did not indicate current instability on these buried facets.  It appears that the recent snow did not quite add enough load to the snowpack. This could change with larger storms in the forecast. 

In more exposed terrain, we started to see signs of wind-affected snow, like small wind lips and cornices, ripples on the snow surface, and scoured areas along the ridges. The new snow was denser and deeper in areas where wind-drifted snow had accumulated. These wind slabs proved to be stubborn, but we could still get some of them to crack on test slopes with enough jumping or by undercutting the test slope. Cornices dropped on the wind-loaded test slopes only triggered sluffs of new snow on the slopes below. Similar to what we saw in the more sheltered areas, we found weak snow below the crusts under the new snow, but did not see signs of current instability. 

We moved onto the lower-elevation, more west- and east-facing slopes on Andesite Peak around noon. When the sun was out, the snow on these slopes started to warm up, and we triggered a few roller balls and pinwheels. When the clouds returned, we felt the snow felt less moist. Ski cuts on steep test slopes produced sluffs of either dry snow or sluffs of not quite wet / not quite dry snow.

A ski cut above a steep E-facing test slope triggered a small loose snow sluff. About 6 inches of storm snow slid off the old crust below it. The sluff was mostly dry snow with some moist snow.