Bullion Basin

I started my day off walking in the rain up toward Bullion, with hopes that the Crystal sucker hole and Rainier block would save me from devastating rain. The plan largely worked, with the rain fizzling out around 10 am. Although I was already soaked by that time.

Lower elevations appeared to have a deeper wetting front from what I observed in my pit up at 6250'. You could tell by probing with your pole or just stepping off the more compacted areas of the trail. 

Speaking of the trail, the surprise of the day was when I came around a corner and found that the standard uptrack had debris crossing it. A loose slide started in the rocks/cliffband of East Peak and gouged and grew until it deposited a nice pile on the summer trail. Not a huge avalanche, but very dense and it would certainly knock you over or twist up your knee. The debris was still soft and wet, so it likely occurred overnight or earlier that morning before I arrived. It looked pretty fresh.

I also spotted crowns from recent slab avalanches and plenty of wet loose in the surrounding mountains. Snow was shedding from the trees, but it's almost all gone now.

Trail breaking was slow going, and the skiing was very challenging. I basically stayed in my skin track on the way down to keep my tips from diving under the heavy, deep snow and toppling me over.

Several recent avalanches were observed. Plus pinwheels, rollerballs, and snow shedding from trees.

The upper snowpack is heavy and deep.  Height of snow on the shoulder of Bullion Peak has increased to 215cm with the wetting front from the rain roughly 15cm deep. 

Below the moist snow, the snowpack is generally right-side up, but warm. The 3/8 interface is 72cm below the surface and the 3/12 interface is 105cm below the surface.

No significant snowpack results in small or large column tests.