Eldorado

The goal of today's tour was to assess snow surfaces and deep persistent slab instabilities on various aspects above 3500'. After the road was cleared and opened last night, we chose to head up into Eldorado Bowl today. We did not observe any signs of instability on our tour. We did get great close up shots of large avalanches in Martin Mine, Skyscraper, and the Death gully on Marmot. Most snow surfaces were firm and supportable with faceted snow. As we ascended up towards the ridge, surfaces got more firm as a result of previous strong winds throughout the last storm. Conditions vary from breakable to supportable to square powder on firm surfaces depending on aspect and elevation. In our assessment today, we found the deep persistent slab problem to be unreactive. We will continue to gather more information about this low likelihood:high consequence problem. 

We did not observe any signs of instability today. No recent avalanches have been observed since 1/27.

Wind effect was intermittent, but skinning was overall pleasant with soft, faceted and faceting snow surfaces. At ridge top near 4,300', snow surfaces were firmer with sastrugi and signs of previous wind loading. 

Height of snow on northerly, leeward terrain was nearly 200cm/78 inches at 4,175' on a northerly aspect.

We dug a pit at 4175' on a N aspect and had ECTX test results. The buried facet crust layers of concern were buried nearly 180 cm/70 inches deep. See pit profile.