V-Max to Lost Lake

Weather allowed us to check out the snow conditions in Snug Harbor and Lost Lake. Surface conditions were mostly firm with a thick crust under a few inches of snow. Above 2,000’ strong winds were blowing snow into firm wind slabs, or scouring the surface. There were numerous small wind slab avalanches in lower gullies that looked old. We also saw a few large slab avalanches, of note: one looked shallow and broke mid slope around 3000’, the other had a deeper crown and broke below the ridge around 4200’. We dug one pit on the Snug Harbor side and one on the Lost Lake side. Both had a similar snowpack structure with a thick crust near the surface and moist facets under a crust about 3’ deep. They did not produce concerning results in our pit tests and in general the snowpack seems to be gaining strength based on these two pits.

We were able to dig two pits, one near V-Max, at 2400’ the second in Lost Lake at 2040’. Both snowpits were roughly (5’9”) 175cm deep with a 1.5’ crust sandwich underneath wind-transported snow. The facet layer we were most concerned about was about 3’ deep (100cm). These facets were rounding and moist. We did not get concerning results in either pit (ECTX, DTX).