Kelly Mountain

Coverage remains similar to Scott's observation on 3/21, with slightly less coverage on W-SW-S aspects. Leaving the truck in the early afternoon, surfaces were soft and moist, but not anything like during the heat wave last week — only top 2-3cm moist. Light NW winds kept things on the cooler side and provided a thin crust and easy travel on cooler aspects.

Returning near Scott's pit he dug on 3/21 and to other locations on colder aspects up toward Kelly Mountain proper, I still found the same layer of surface hoar he got a propagating test result on. While water hasn't percolated as obviously through the snowpack in this area on shady aspects, the surface hoar looks to be compressing and also is not present in every location I dug on shady aspects along this drainage. This makes it difficult to make widespread generalizations about stability based on its presence here or pit results. I got propagating test results with the upper end of moderate to lower end to hard force in some pits, ECTN's on this layer in others, and ECTX's in others. This points towards, at least in this drainage, that the SH is present, could cause a slide, but the likelihood is trending unliklely. I would suspect that the same spacial variability persists in other areas in the Soldier & Wood River Valley Zone, trending towards the same reactivity.