Bullion Basin

It was pretty arduous trail-breaking to get up to Bullion today. The temps were frigid, and I had to break out my East Coast LJs for the first time in years. We had pretty limited visibility, but signs of wind transport were spotted near ridgelines. Drifts, texturing, and cornices were visible from valley bottom. We got some localized cracking on switchbacks, but mostly the wind slabs were hidden under some new snow. You could feel the density change as you traveled. We triggered one small pocket on a convexity as we descended.

Limited red flags but we barely touched avalanche terrain. Whenever we did, we got some localized cracking and triggered one small pocket on our descent. Hardly big enough to call an avalanche as it arrested in place.

I took some time to dig down to the Solstice Crust to look at things after Crystal Pro Patrol triggered persistent slabs all over the mountain this week. The 12/30 crust was 4 feet below the surface (127cm) and the Solstice about 6 inches below that. I was able to get the Solstice to fail repeatedly with deep tap tests and show propagation by performing a modified ECT.

The upper snowpack contained a layer of graupel 20cm below the surface along with other density breaks and old wind slabs that would produce results in compression and shear tests. No layers propagated during an ECT. Overall, the new snow was fairly strong and settling well.