Quick report
We toured up to CFR Ridge on tincan to get a look at the snowpack on a north aspect. See snowpack section for specific snowpit information. In general, neither snowpit gave us concerning test results although we did find the buried surface hoar in the south facing pit. The two snowpits are strikingly different, which is neat to see how the different aspects produce different environments for the snow to change. Riding conditions were good especially on any non-solar aspects. The snow got heavy and skied like mashed potatoes in the lower elevations. We will continue to track the buried surface hoar, which has been the cause of many human-triggered avalanches in the past month. For now, we don't trust our snowpits to give us good information and conditions remain dangerous especially in Turnagain Pass and Seward where the layer is buried 2-3' deep.
Weather
It was a bit of a storm day out there with light snowfall throughout our tour and some moderate east wind that was transporting snow while we were on CFR. Once we crossed to the south side of the mountain (same elevation) it was quite pleasant with no wind. It was warm with temperatures in the mid-30s F. The visibility was in and out as the sun peeked through occasionally. A few inches of snow accumulated in places by the time we headed out.
Snowpack
There was about 1" of new snow on top of a 1" crust in the lower elevations. The crust disappeared around 1,900'. We dug a snowpit on a north aspect at 2,600' with no concerning results (CT22 RP down 1' on a layer of rounding facets, CT25 BRK down just over 1' on another layer of rounding facets, ECTX). See the snopilot for more grain info. The snowpack in this location was shallow and consisted of some new snow above several crust/facets layers with large facets at the bottom. We dug a second snowpit on a south aspect where we found the buried surface hoar about 2' down. The grains were 2mm in size and rounding. The test result was ECTX. We did not see anything else concerning in this snowpit.