8302 Gunsight

We saw a warming snowpack that was getting the surface beat down by saturation in the lowest elevations and wind affect any upper exposed elevations. When loading was taking place off the peaks and the ridges, we had a couple loud whoomphs while climbing on skis the combination of snow pit test results and observations of avalanches and loud, audible collapses in the snow pack, kept us conservative in our daily travel.

We saw a recent avalanches just below the ridge line on 8302 below the cornices and below the rock that vary between two and three Deep. The one thing that we experienced seem to be confined to floater areas yet people we spoke to had that happening on steeper slope, saw North terrain wind affect was noticed on the surface and light to moderate gusty south and west winds were observed off the ridge lines.

Our test pits on NE and WNW aspects showed 6-6.5 feet of snow and still showed propensity to propagate on buried weak layers of surface hoar and near surface facets, as well as graupel from mid storm clearing at one and a half feet below the surface to the old new snow/ 12/13 storm interface to 3 feet down with harder yet also propagating results in the upper 20s.

Boot penetration was deep:3-4 feet. The thickness of the warming snowpack made trailbreaking difficult. Wind effected snow surfaces allowed for slightly better travel. Ultimately ski travel/penetration was shallower, around 6-10 inches making for decent skiing. Brief turnaround on the road near 6100' with the snowmobile revealed a botomless offtrail experience with a heavy thumb on the throttle.