White Pass backcounty: Hogback, Shoe Lake, Miriam Basin

Overall travel conditions were much drier and softer than we anticipated given the long stretch of sunny, warm weather. While we did see a few rollerballs, most of the wet loose slides and pinwheels were from several days ago near the beginning of the warm-up. 

No signs of instability.

The snowpack was much colder and drier than anticipated. Soft dry snow continues to linger on all but steeper sunny aspects and a few wind-scoured locations. You could probably break up the snowpack in a few ways: SE-S-SW,and WSW-N-ESE and above the inversion/below the inversion (~5000ft). 

Above the Inversion:

SE-S-SW: Moist but not wet surface snow sat above a well-settled and generally strong snowpack. We were able to trigger a few rollerballs, but the surface snow wasn't very wet, so the the rollerballs didn't travel very far nor grow very large. 

WSW-N-ESE: Generally we found 6-8 inches (15-20cm) of dry faceting snow on the surface. Often you'll hear this referred to as "recycled powder." Below the soft snow was a well settled, strong, and generally stable snowpack. While we had limited snowpack tests, none showed any layers of concern. The one exception to the soft snow was in wind-scoured areas. In these locations, you'd find more of a firm crust and much more variable snow depths. While you might expect to see this near ridgecrest, some of the more wind-scoured slopes we encountered were much lower in the terrain. 

Below the Inversion: 

Out travel was much more limited lower in the terrain, but what little travel we did below 5000ft revealed a much more variable snow surface with large surface hoar, deep sof recycled powder, breakable crusts, and a few very firm surfaces.