Cowap Ridge - Canyon Creek

While persistent weakness was still on the radar, there just aren't enough reasons to suspect one would trigger a large slab avalanche unless they were in exactly the right spot. Signs of traffic were extensive and no human-triggered avalanches were observed throughout the steeper terrain in Canyon Creek. Stability tests didn't raise much alarm either. There is more faceting in the upper snowpack than we are used to but that doesn't mean it's still a "weak" snowpack. Of course, that opinion might change if/when we get a more typical Cascades storm with a big load of dense, water-heavy snow. 

Wind slabs are the primary concern right now and there is plenty of soft snow out there to build fresh slabs when the wind turns on for real. The snow surface is the usual combination of weaker snow we see after some high pressure, but surface hoar was already getting dispersed and surface facets were not well developed. What will mostly determine the old-new snow bond will be the amount of wind in the next few days (how much of the current weak surface will get redistributed or destroyed) and also the precipitation type with future storms (dry and cold or warm and wet).

Crust on solar aspects with surface hoar and faceted, decomposing fragments on shaded aspects. Found the sun crust buried on Jan 30th down 40cm on a southeast, mid-elevation slope. On a shaded slopes, it was 50-70cm down to the suspected Jan 10th layer with a 5cm layer of slightly softer, faceted snow above. While most layers show signs of faceting, they tend to be quite small (~0.5mm) and are mixed with other forms like rounds or fragments. Stability tests were inconclusive. CT's showed various resistant planar shears in layers of faceted snow, but no single layer stood out. ECT's produced no or non-propagating results.