Ten Lakes/Grave Cr.

We had a gorgeous day of riding in the Ten Lakes area.  

-Plenty of new snow (10-12 inches of recent snow on the road).

-Test pits gave us confidence to explore some steeper terrain and poke out of the timber.  The buried Feb. 3rd crust is nearly a meter below the surface.  The faceted snow above the crust is rounding and was unreactive in our tests.

-There was evidence of wind, although windslabs were generally not very thick(less than a foot) in our travels.  We could see plenty of dunes and pockets of thicker windslabs, but did not travel over them.

-Besides some loose dry that was sloughing in steep terrain below the cliffs, we didn't see any sign of recent avalanches.  

In general it looks like the Ten Lakes has recieved a healthy dose of snow this winter.  Lately its fallen mostly straight down.  Very exposed ridges and high peaks show evidence of wind, but protected terrain is holding 10-20 inches of dry powder. This dry powder, if we see afternoon sun warm up the snow surface in the next few days, could pose a loose wet problem. 

We saw no recent avalanches (besides minor loose dry), no cracking/collapsing, or instabilities in our tests.

Several Pits.  

-6,400' East aspect.  HS 270.  2/3 crust is buried 105 cm.  Facets are rounding above the crust.  ECTN28 on a graupel layer down 50 cm.  ECTN 30 on a thin layer of small (.5 mm) facets down 65 cm.

-7,000' Northeast aspect.  2/3 crust is thicker here, buried 85 cm. Facets are rounding and the layer is much thinner. ECTN24 on same graupel layer down 35 cm.  

-Windslabs on exposed terrain at the ridgelines.  The few that we crossed over were 4F hard.