Summer Lion Head Traverse

Quick observation from Summer Lion Head Traverse. The slope is well-connected, and an avalanche here would be consequential. 

The 2-3 foot crown that was visible yesterday appeared to be more like 4 inches as it had reloaded. The area where forecasters dug a previous snowpit was fully filled in.

The new slab surface was pencil-hard about 15 cm with some wind texture, and your foot would easily punch through to a thin, weak layer of fist-hard snow that was on top of a thin (2-3 cm crust). The surface slab depth was variable, with a deeper area up (30+ cm). Our observations were really limited due to time. We traveled through a softer treed area and approached the hard slab from the side, so the observed depths are very limited. The hard slab appeared to be well-connected across the slope.

2 ECTs yielded ECTP11 on this hardness change and weak layer. This was likely a thinner spot that may have had increased sensitivity, whereas a thicker spot could feel more stubborn and supportable underfoot. The combination of steep terrain, clean surface shear, moderate ECT, and a well-connected hard slab limited our ability to assess this and was not a slope we were interested in crossing.