Promised Land

<p>Obs from The Bitter End in The Promised Land. 25-35 new snow overlays 3 cm supportive rain crust between 800 m and 1100 m. Hs 90 @ 800 m and 140 @ 1100 m. Shooting cracks from skis noted on the climb, although they didn't shoot far and neither of us heard or felt any whumpfs. Profile at 1100m revealed 35 cm storm snow sitting on a 3cm thick supportive rain crust, with several cm of weak 4 finger hard snow below that. Then a mostly homogenous snow pack of 1 finger and pencil hard snow, down to 30 cm above ground at the interface with the October snow. The 30 cm directly above the ground consisted of several crusts layered with large sugary grains. Repeatable easy compression test results at storm snow interface CTE 2 and CTE 3 down 35, failing with sudden collapse quality. The storm snow was right side up and slowly settling into a slab, perhaps just cohesive enough to produce the limited cracking. More alarming, at least to us, was the consistent moderate compression test results down 90 cm. CTM 13 and CTM 16 down 90 cm. That failure plain was 10 cm above the the October layer interface and produced sudden collapse (drop) quality. Ski quality was quite good and although we could feel the crust down there, it didn't have that boiler plate edge to it. Welcome to winter!</p>

Terrain Ridden

Mellow slopes, Open trees.

Terrain Avoided

Alpine slopes, Steep slopes, Convex slopes.

Avalanche Conditions

30cm + of new snow, or significant drifting, or rain in the last 48 hours.

Whumpfing or drum-like sounds or shooting cracks.

Snow Conditions

Powder.

Weather Conditions

Stormy, Cloudy.