Huntington Ravine

Skies remained clear with light clouds till after 1300, where cloud coverage began increasing to overcast. The combination of low winds, solar, and warm ambient air temperature prompted continued settlement of any remaining wind slabs. We did not observe any avalanche hazard in Huntingon Ravine.

Crusts in sun-exposed terrain were softening, with surface snow moistening. Directly under rocks, there was evidence of rollerballs and small wet loose, but only on the surface, and nothing entrained additional snow. 

Increasing cloud coverage, dropping temperatures, and a slight increase in wind speeds began refreezing snow surfaces with a crust layer. 

Snow surfaces that remained shaded had a thin surface crust. Across Huntington Ravine, there were variable snow surfaces; the wind slabs formed on Wednesday, 3/4, ranged from 2 inches to about a foot in thickness. They became deeper the higher we traveled in terrain up the Fan and under Central. These were found to be unreactive, and the combination of warming, refreezing, and softening this snow lacked the structure of a wind slab and was very well bonded to the old snow surface.  Areas where the slab was thinner and in the sun were easy to get to slide directly under your skis in sluff, they lacked structure but were not loose or cohesionless and had no propagation. Some areas that were exposed to the old hard snow surfaces were mixed between soft snow or softening ice. 

As skies became overcast and temperatures dropped, terrain above 4000 ft began to refreeze and form crusts. As of around 1430, snow surfaces below 4000 ft were generally still soft, but have likely refrozen as temperatures dropped into the late afternoon.