Pyramid, East Seeley

We found a deep snowpack on upper elevation north and east aspects (around 6 ft!). Lower elevations, as well as south and west aspects, are considerably thinner. We found signs of wind slab instability today such as cracking and collapsing on east facing ridge lines. We found poor snowpack structure in a snowpit dug on a northeast aspect around 7600'. The slab overlaying weak facets near the ground consisted of pencil hard rounding facets, the weak facets are buried 52" (132cm) down, and we got no propagation in an extended column test. Near crust facets were found below a knife hard melt freeze crust 20" (50cm) down. The persistent slab problem lingers in this zone but is very low likelihood.

We observed some cracking in wind loaded snow on east facing ridgelines. We experience one large collapse near the top of the saddle on a northwest aspect that was also heavily wind affected.

At lower elevations, the snowpack is still very minimal with only about 1 ft on the ground. As we worked up to middle and upper elevations, on south and west aspects, we found average depths of 2-3 ft. On north and east aspects at upper elevations, we found an average of 6 ft.

We dug a pit on a northeast aspect around 7600'. The depth of this pit was 70" (177cm). We found 20" (50cm) of new and recent snow at the surface. This new/recent snow was sitting on a knife hard melt freeze crust that had near crust faceting below it. Midpack we found a pencil hard slab of rounding facets. Near the ground was fist and pencil hard facets. We performed an extended column tests and got no results (ECTX). It is of note that when the ECT block was pulled away from the wall, it broke quickly underneath the shovel in the near crust facets. It then broke and propagated across the full block in the fist hard facets near the ground as I continued to pull the block away.