Great Gulf and Burt Ravine

The plan for the day was to take advantage of clear visibility to look into snow distribution and path size in terrain on the west side off of the Cog. 

Below Jacob’s Ladder found a thin breakable crust with soft snow on top. There was no wind effect or cohesion to this snow and stellars were easily seen both falling on gear and in the snow surface while skinning. 

Above Jacob’s Ladder there was soft snow that had various amounts of wind effect. Some snow was dry, loose, and lacked cohesion while other snow was firmer (1F hardness) and had a small slab construct. Also found sastrugi and wind textured snow. Other surfaces were heavily rimed, glaze ice, or boilerplate (but found far less of this surface than I often have). 

Our discussion while skinning is that there is snow available to transport, but it would take strong winds to move this snow. 

Observed snow being transported from Jacob’s Ladder and above. In Great Gulf saw wind gusts increase and snow surfaces there being scoured. Our skin track was quickly filled back in around Burt Ravine and when leaving Great Gulf was unable to discern where it was.