Swamp Creek

The few inches of fresh snow and cooler temperatures was a welcome sight and made for an overall pleasant outing. Small loose dry avalanches were the only avalanche activity we saw, limited to the new snow layer. The remainder of the snowpack was moist, relatively hard, well bonded, and stable. The snowpack is fairly shallow for this time of year, although at upper elevations, it appears we have a more consistent snowpack than normal, as wind hasn't redistributed as much snow as it usually does (the snow's been too wet and heavy). 

Snowline started around 3300'. This was mainly old, firm snow, which softened during the day. New snow from Saturday became much more noticeable around 4000ft, where it quickly became the 5" we saw in most areas we traveled today.  The snow was about 3 ft deep by 5000ft. By 6000' the snowpack was almost 5ft deep. 

Beneath the low-density dry surface snow layer, we found a supportable crust. The crust was 2 inches thick and knife-hard, although still moist. If we stomped while skinning we were able to break the crust just a tiny bit under our skis, rather than sliding like bambi on the surface. Beneath this hard layer was varying moist layers all the way to the ground. These layers were all hard, with no layers softer than 1-finger. Most were in the pencil-hard range. 

You could see subtle wind texture on the new snow surface in some areas, yet the low-density snow layer was evenly distributed everywhere and no wind slab development was noted. I found surface hoar on all aspects at 5900', although crystals were larger on the northerly half.

Runnels and an abundance of old rollerballs were visible beneath the new snow. We were glad that the underlying layer and irregularities were at least a little forgiving and not completely icy and hard.