Avalanche Peak

Today we enjoyed deep trail breaking and found a rapidly settling snowpack. There was generally 2-3 ft of unconsolidated storm snow sitting on top of a couple of crusts left over from earlier in December. These crusts were found on all aspects and elevations that we travelled. So far, it seems like the buried weak layers were tolerating the last pulse of moisture better than the previous two... but we kept our travel to low angle slopes to maintain a healthy margin for error.

We observed two natural avalanches mid-slope on Gladiator Peak's W aspect. Although we did not experience any collapses today, a party we encountered did mention local (~25 ft) collapsing along a rocky ridgeline.

New snow (lots of it): We found 1.5 to 2.5 ft of new snow that had fallen since the previous day's rising rain lines. Above 8800', the new snow is primarily right side up and unconsolidated. Below 8800', the new snow felt more "upside down" and consolidated into a soft slab.

Crusts: Dec 17 and Dec 5 were observed on all aspects and at all elevations travelled today. These two crusts were generally separated by 4-6 inches (10-15cm) of moist rounding facets. Neither of these produced unstable results in testing today.