Quick report
I toured into lower Hillman’s Highway with the objective of getting in a workout and assessing the snowpack setup from today’s snowfall. At the base of Hillman’s there were a few wind slabs that cracked underfoot, but did not result in shooting cracks. Hand shears 100 feet higher resulted in noncohesive slabs that broke apart easily during the test. I then met up with two friends and headed to the top of the Christmas tree on Hillman’s. We found extensive and deep graupel in Hillman’s, pooling 20-30cm deep on top of the previous melt/freeze crust. A delicate wind or storm slab was forming on top of the graupel, 2-3cm thick at F hardness. There was minimal cohesion between layers, but no propagation upon doing hand shears. Shears simply disintegrated in our hands. We transitioned at 1730 at 4400ft at the top of the Christmas Tree due to time constraints and had amazing turns on Hillman’s and on the JSST. Snow began falling moderately at the time of transition and the snow reached down as far as Pinkham.