Canyon Creek

It was a wet day, and snow surfaces were wet. Above 5000ft, riding was good in wet schmoo. We saw a few recent very small wet avalanches in steep terrain beneath cliffs, and witnessed one very small thin snow pocket release from a cliff band, "waterfalling" down the cliff beneath it.

We stuck to gentler terrain due to increasingly poor visibility, but no results from slope testing on smaller slopes, not identifying any current surface (wet loose) instabilities, and investigating the bond between the  newer moist/wet layer, and the crust beneath resulted in us feeling comfortable with traveling in steeper terrain. 

Very small- D.5 avalanches ran- uncertain timeline, possibly 24+ hours old- in very steep terrain beneath rock bands. We saw a small sluff that ran from thin snow cover on very steep rocks during our outing. Many small rollerballs were present on steep slopes.

Snowline began at about 2500ft, where we started sledding. At 4500ft, there was about 3cm of soft, wet melt forms over a thick crust. At 5000ft, there was 15cm (6") over the crust. At 5600ft, there was 30cm of snow over the crust. 

All surfaces had a soft, wet crust that we easily broke through on foot and didn't notice while sledding. There weren't any surfaces at any elevation that were icy- grip was good, and sleds didn't quite overheat. 

There was no evidence of wind transport, even from the previous day, in the snow. Surfaces were bumpy and tunneled. The top 15cm at 5600ft was wet melt forms, with moist decomposing forms beneath.

There was a subtle but irregular weakness that failed with moderate shovel shear pulls about 5cm above the crust.