Tincan Trees

We skied one run in the Tincan trees. The area took a beating from the wind over the past 24 hours, with sastrugi, crusts, and windblown snow at and above treeline.

I dug one hasty pit just below 2000' on a north aspect and found a very reactive setup, with two older weak layers failing in stability tests. One of these was a layer of buried surface hoar from early April, buried roughly 10" deep (ECTP9). The other was the layer of faceted snow that formed in early March and was buried on March 6, now just under 2' deep at that elevation (ECTP14). Both layers looked bad in the snowpit, and it sure seemed like both could still produce avalanches.

The snowpack is still very much a winter snowpack on shaded aspects at treeline, and at all aspects above treeline. We didn't get a chance to dig on any southerlies in the middle elevation band today, so still some uncertainty there.

Snow surface in the trees was about 4" new snow sitting on top of a supportable melt/freeze crust.