Togwotee Pass, Grouse Mountain

We rode into Grouse Mountain to replace the temperature sensor on the weather station.  Traveled from 8500 to 10,200 feet and observed many aspects. No avalanches were observed short of a couple very small loose snow point releases, and a few small, very old persistent slab avalanches. Snow surfaces included widespread surface hoar - mostly below 9000', crusts on sunny slopes, deep facets on shady aspects and some old, very stubborn wind slabs that didn't want to budge on exposed ridges. Several cornices had significant cracking but none had realeased. Snow depths ranged from only a foot on sunny, lower elevation slopes to 4 feet at 9500 on protected, northerly slopes.  Advanced near surface facet development on steep northerly slopes at 10000' sluffed easily and entrained a good amount of snow. Along the east spur between 9200 and 10,000 feet on both northerly and southerly aspects much of the overlying slab has faceted away to cohesionless snow. On southerlies, these facets were capped with a crust.

I suspect we will see a fair amount of avalanche activity by the beginning of next week if storm totals add up to what is forecasted. Most of the observed surfaces are not conducive to stability when loaded.