Little O'Malley

We left Glen Alps trailhead around 3 pm and traveled along the powerline to the base of the gully in windy, partly cloudy conditions. After climbing the old trail from the bridge and rejoining the new hiking trail, weather shifted to calm, clear, and sunny skies. A thin, widespread crust persists up to the ridge, especially adjacent to vegetation, and is capped in places by shallow pockets of soft, loose, wind-transported snow.

We dug a test pit on the leeward side of the ridge at ~3,400’ on a SW aspect where the snow depth measured 106 cm. An ECTP29 failed on the well-documented slab/facet interface 48 cm above the ground. There is 10 cm of new 4F slab resting on the existing slab, and the new/old snow interface appears poorly bonded. While backfilling the pit, the upper 10 cm slab repeatedly and energetically released, indicating continued reactivity both at the persistent weak layer and at the new snow interface.