Observation: No Name Bowl

Went out to No Name Bowl not knowing quite what to expect, I was there on Sunday and was getting collapsing on the ridgeline and decided to leave the main bowl alone not being sure how much old snow was in it. I basically ski cut along the top of it until I got to the center punch with no cracking or collapsing and then worked my way down the slope 10 or 20 feet and dug a hand pit in the starting zone, according to my compass and altimeter I was just below 9550ft on a E-NE facing slope. Once I dug down I discovered there was not much of a October crust and the facets at the ground were a little damp, and the snow above that was not a cohesive slab. The more northerly shady part of the bowl appeared to have avalanched during the storm. My thoughts are that the middle of the bowl did have old snow but it wasn’t as weak as other places on the PC Ridgeline that I’ve looked and didn’t have the October crust for a bed surface. And like Drew alluded to on the forecast the surface hoar had been destroyed by the combination of warm temperatures, SW winds and a layer of graupel falling on it. Photos: mostly graupel in the new snow, no evidence of surface hoar being buried in tacked and pit location at the top of the track

I’m thinking we are moving towards moderate on all but high elevation NE through NW but with more snow and wind in the forecast all bets might be off.

About an inch of new snow mixed with graupel by the time I left at 2:00pm