Round Top

I was impressed by a dozen cars in the lot on a non-holiday Monday, and a very well packed approach trail. This area is clearly seeing plenty of use, and the generally supportable snowpack made for better travel conditions than expected. Surface conditions were highly variable, even between subtle changes in aspect. Informal obs on cold slopes showed a shallow but dense snowpack, with the exception of a thin faceted layer down 20cm, and more facets at the bottom of the snowpack. It took some combo of art and luck to find a digging location with smooth ground cover to test the deeper facets with formal obs. I was unable to trigger them even going beyond 30 taps on my ECTs. The shallower facets also did not propagate, but they warrant close monitoring moving forward.

On cold slopes, a generally supportable snowpack and more usable for travel than it appears from afar.  Mid pack on cold slopes in this area was pencil hard, with a faceted layer at the ground, and a faceted layer 20cm from the surface. On warm slopes, the surface was wet/refrozen, and depth was far less usable than on cold slopes. Not much loose snow on the surface of any aspect observed for current/future wind transport.