Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
Toured up Little St. Joe then out to Pinball, down Pinball then up and down Big St. Joe via the customary SE face. I saw many old crowns on wind loaded aspects from past events, but no obvious crowns or avalanche activity that had occurred in the last few days. It appeared that Wednesday's snow event under produced, with only an inch or two of snow even at high elevations. Overall stability seemed good. The only obvious red flag that I observed was isloated cracking up to 8" deep in wind loaded pockets near ridgelines. It was hard to tell if the layer was deposited snow from Wednesday, or if the slabs included older snow. In any case, they seemed pretty manageable in isolated terrain features but they were touchy enough that I avoided avalanche terrain connected to large wind deposits. I modified my route to stay out of terrain directly connected to the most obvious starting zone on the SE face of Big St. Joe but felt comfortable proceeding to the top. I dug a pit in a wind deposit on a SE facing aspect at 8,200 feet on Little St. Joe climber's Lt of the up track. HS 154cm. I only dug down 90 cm (I don't think I dug down to the December drought layer). Pit results were ECTN16 at 20 cm down (interface from the 1/3 storm, I think), and ECTN26 54 cm down (interface from New year storm, I think). I interpreted this as confidence inspiring in this location. On a skiing note: Pinball is skiable to the bottom and the last ~1000 feet could use more snow, but it is skiable. Getting up onto Big St. Joe is pretty scrappy but doable. Bass creek trail has a lot of encroaching brush but coverage is good.