Deserted

Ski toured off the Deserted Glacier into a basin behind The Tusk to look for 3/16 Buried surface hoar.  Dug two pits at 3600'/ NW.  Pit results produced ECTX in both locations.  The 3/16 new/old interface was identified and what buried surface hoar was there was highly deformed and mixed with other grains.   Height of snow was 325 cms. A layer of concern was not identified in this location.  Continued up the basin to 6600' and continued to look for the buried surface hoar on steep north facing terrain.  Once again, the interface was easily identifiable, however buried surface hoar was not present.  Hand shear tests produced hard results and no clean shear was present.  

Sluff in terrain steeper than 45° was moderate volume and moderate speed.  Hundreds of helicopter skier tracks were observed in the Deserted Valley on multiple aspects in terrain steeper than 40° with no observed human triggerd avalanches.  

It is important to note that this observation should not be applied to other valleys as conditions have been reported to be variable with some helicopter ski operations reporting continued sensitivity of the 3/16 buried surface hoar layer and observations of this grain well preserved up to 9mm.

No signs of instability