Eldorado

Clear skies and a gorgeous sunrise were the highlight of today's tour and kept our spirits high despite the below average snowpack depth and above average rocks that are still showing despite being late December. Most of our tour consisted of firm surfaces, varying from patchy and isolated wind slabs that were firm,1F to pencil hard and breakable wind crusts.  Soft snow exists in isolated locations.  Ridgelines above 4000' are firm and sculpted from the wind over the last several days. Goals today were to identify the extent of recent wind transport and slab formation at upper elevations and continue to track and map persistent slab potential. While both problems were observed, wind slabs appear to be thinner than anticipated and isolated to ridgelines and cross-loaded terrain features. Faceted snowpack structure and persistent weak layers exist in a more widespread distribution at upper elevations, but associated slabs for this problem are isolated and largely unreactive.

See side wall pit photos