Sunburst

Went out to the pass today to try and score it lucky with weather and surface conditons. Our main goal of the day was to look for how high the buried surface hoar layer goes, if there are buried facets at higher elevations contributing to instability, and how the recent snow and winds have affected the area. We found the weather to be better than expected wth periods of sunshine, wam temps, and calm winds. The buried surface hoar was found intact under 1"-2" of fresh snow only at around 2000' where it got rained on lower down and blown away higher up. As we toured out to Taylor pass to go up Sunburst ridge, we continued to find 1"-2" of soft snow on top of a wind slab. In our pit dug at 3750' on a west aspect we found small (1-2mm) near-surface facets buried 1' down from the surface under a slab. We did not have any concerning results in our stabilty tests and snowpack structure was good overall. Skiing was great as the recent snow and winds filled in almost all the tracks in the area giving Sunburst a nice refresh. 

Did not observe any signs of instability besides opening glide cracks on Seattle ridge and along the Tincan ridge. Saw debris of a large avalanche on the south face of Tincan Peak, unsure of age or cause of avalanche as visability was poor at the time.

Breakable melt-freeze crust present at and below treeline. Once we got to ~2000' the crust went away and there was about 1" of fresh snow on top of a wind slab. Surface conditions continued to be dust on slab throughout the day. Tracks on Sunburst had been filled in by a little snow and recent winds and gave us great skiing conditions. 

We dug a pit just below the weather station at 3750' on a W aspect and found a snowpack with good structure. In stability tests we had no concerning results (ECTX, CT30Q2 1' down). We did identify small 1-2mm facets about 1' down at the new/old snow interface where our compression test failed at 30 taps.