Quick report
I dug one full pit at 6900' elevation on an east aspect. There are two layers I don't trust: a thin layer of facets from 55-57 cm which failed on ECTN19, and facets near the ground. The facets near the ground were not reactive in stability tests, but I'm just not ready to trust them. In addition, there were two crusts which could also cause problems in the future but I did not look closely at them. I also dug a quick pit on an ENE aspect at 6500 feet. While it had a faceted layer similar to that mentioned above, it was unreactive in an extended column test. ECTX. No shooting cracks, no collapsing, no whumpfing despite my best efforts jumping on many test slopes throughout the route.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 28
- Cloud Cover
- overcast
- Recent Snowfall
- 0.5
Exposed ridges were windy, where I'd estimate 10 mph winds from the south with gusts up to 20 mph. With these light to moderate winds, I did not observe any wind loading taking place.
Snowpack
This snowpack is a layer cake of facets and crusts with some good, right-side-up heavy creamy powder above 6000 feet on North and East aspects. Despite positive results from stability tests, I still see a poor snowpack structure with chains of basal facets and a small faceted layer 55-57 cm above the ground. While the snowpack is stable for now, the incoming storm cycle could awaken these persistent weak layers. The base of the snowpack is stabilizing nicely, with isothermal conditions below 40 cm depth.