Weather
Dry and calm with scattered cloud cover all day.
Snowpack
We saw an average height of snow (HS) of about 80cm deep on northerly-facing slopes. On the same slope, we observed a weak layer of well-developed facets making up the bottom 30-35 cm of the snowpack. Extended Column Tests at 10,800 ft on a north-facing slope showed that the slab in that spot did not have quite enough structural integrity to propagate across the column. A PST in the same location saw a failure at 30/100cm about 45cm down in the snowpack. A slightly stiffer slab in the same area demonstrated the ability to propagate failure. Audible collapsing on this same structure increased as we gained elevation to about 11,400 feet. The alpine looks much more wind-affected.
Avalanche
We observed several small natural avalanches from the Dec. 7-8 cycle.