Hogback

Good trail conditions and sunny weather made for smooth travel despite the chilly temperatures. Upper elevations beyond the sled trail had a mix of surface conditions, including a variety of windslabs, softer faceted snow, and isolated areas of sastrugi. Overall, a pretty nice route considering we are dealing with a wind-damaged snowpack.  

Upper elevations had 5 cm-thick recently formed windslabs in some areas that easily produced cracking, but no concerning signs of instability were observed.

The snow surface had been shaped and sculpted by the wind, but the damage I observed was not as severe as in some other areas. Surfaces were mostly windslabs of varying hardnesses with some softer faceted snow in isolated areas. I was unable to find the 1/26 weak layer in a snow pit at 4800 feet, but this is just one data point and cannot be extrapolated to a wider area until we get more observations. Until then, we will assume the 1/26 layer may exist in other areas nearby.  Due to wind reshaping the snowpack, there is significant variability in where this layer remains intact and sensitive. 

The general snowpack structure was a series of stacked windslabs separated by thinner layers of weaker snow in some cases. Pit tests produced no notable results on these layers.