Weather
Few clouds and mostly calm with light gusts from the southwest. No noticeable snow transport today.
Snowpack
Minor cracking on wind-drifted snow along ridgelines. The snowpack above treeline is very wind-affected with ski and boot penetration often 0 cm with a variable breakable wind crust up to 8cm thick. The near treeline elevation band, roughly between 11,000 and 12,000 feet seems to be the area of most concern where the slab is mostly continuous, close to two feet thick, and rests on a weak layer of faceted grains that showed mixed results in snowpack tests. Although these areas of concern with a slab over a weak layer are getting harder to find and growing more stubborn there are still slopes I would avoid traveling on, especially near treeline and the lower levels of the above treeline elevation band. West Willow Creek also notably did not have any depth hoar present in the areas where we dug and any facets near the ground showed clear signs that they had been rounding for an extended period of time and were well-bonded and mostly rounded. Below about 11,000 feet small surface hoar grains were present on most slopes except for steep, sunny slopes where any surface hoar growth overnight was likely melting in the daytime.
Avalanche
Observed dozens of large to very large avalanches from the Thanksgiving Storm natural avalanche cycle. Only avalanches observed in West Willow, Willow, and East Snowmass Creeks were included in this observation.