Phillips Bench towards Lower Reef Ridge

I poked around the Phillips bench area for a couple of hours this morning to see how middle elevations were faring. Rain at the car (7600')  changed to snow (S1) by 8000'. The snowpack at middle elevations in sheltered, treed terrain (South through East aspects) was not as sensitive as I expected - although there is still collapsing and signs of instability. A crust from yesterday about 10 inches down disappeared by 8200 feet. That same depth (10-12") produced very easy hand shears on isolation up to 8700' - it looked to be on a mid-storm interface. The new/old interface buried about 2 feet down seems to be bonding ok, was stubborn, and producing broken (non-planar) hand shears in this area.  Small convex rollovers/test slopes were not sensitive or producing anything.

We have some very dense snow out there. Relative to the elevation I was at this morning, the mid-mountain plot at the Village (8160') had 10" of snow in the last 24 hours and 1.8" of SWE! That's 18% density snow.  The Raymer plot at 9360' also measured 18% with 12 inches of snow and 2.25 inches of water! That's a lot of water for not too much snow. While the sheltered areas that I traveled through at middle elevations were not reactive this morning, that is not the case in a lot of places, given the high SW winds (737 miles at the Summit) in exposed areas, lower elevation rain, and high variability of new/old snow interface quality.  With more precipitation through Friday, it could get worse before it gets better. Avoid avalanche terrain, especially around terrain traps or under larger steep slopes.

Only had a couple small collapses with minimal cracking around 8000' on SE aspects. No avalanches observed.