Point 6

The last 10 days of snowfall have made a dramatic impact on the snowpack in the Rattlesnake. The mountains now look very snowy, and coverage has significantly improved. The persistent slab problem has transitioned to a low likelihood, high consequence problem that doesn't show many signs of instability. The slab of new and recent snow is around 3 feet deep, and there are still some areas with weak facets near the ground and/or in the middle of the snowpack. Those areas have a poor snowpack structure. However, some other areas with increased depth are healing and becoming more right-side up. There were some fresh, reactive wind slabs today, but they were small and confined to right along the ridgeline. Today's sunshine heated up south aspects, particularly at middle and lower elevations. I observed small rollerballs on steep road cuts during my exit in the afternoon. 

I dug a snow pit in a spot with very variable depths. The initial pit was almost 2 meters deep with a generally right side up structure. The facets in the bottom half of the snowpack were rounding and did not produce any results in an extended column test. There were some non propagating results on density inversions in the recent snowfall. I then dug the pit back a couple of feet further up the slope, where the character of the snowpack changed substantially. It was a much shallower spot on some rocks with a depth of 115 cm and a poor snowpack structure. The facets near the ground were weak and around 2mm in size. The facets produced a propagating result in an extended column test on the 24th tap (ECTP24).