Pine Creek -

We traveled between 7400' and 12300' today, primarily on N facing aspects. In general, the recent storm snow is settling nicely and is bonding to the firm old surface well. Temperatures were cool most of the day which helped to delay the onset of loose wet avalanche concerns. Only lower elevation ~>9500' slopes which received direct sun were transitioning toward sticky, moist, loose snow. We had no concerns for wet loose avalanching at any elevation on North aspects given dry surface snow above ~9500' and no signs of instability below that elevation.

• The depth of the recent storm snow varied with elevation.
  • HST between 9000'-9500', 5-10cm. 
  • At 11200' it was closer to 30 cm with only 5cm of ski penetration and 20cm boot penetration.
• This soft snow showed no propensity to crack or collapse. We saw very little sign of wind affect, other than some texture/erosion where a very light down canyon wind was rolling some snow along the surface.
  • Old tracks (yesterday?) were very pronounced in a high alpine couloir, but had been obscured slightly by recently blown snow from these down canyon breezes at the middle elevations. 
• East aspects around 10000' had a 1 inch melt freeze crust which was supportable and slippery on skis, but broke easily on foot. The snow was dry beneath the crust. I assume this was fairly widespread, but we avoided these aspects for better ski quality.
• I found some evidence of in-storm wind slabs near the ridgetop, below rockbands that were likely areas for them to build. They were ~20-30cm thick and unreactive to a skiers weight. Hand shears showed mostly low quality breaks within the storm snow and a couple resistant planar results at the old snow surface.

We observed one very small loose dry avalanche which originated in steep rocky terrain on a NE aspect. There were numerous debris fans from older loose dry slides in steep, high elevation, north facing terrain. E aspects up to 10,200' showed evidence of recent loose wet activity which were small, and all originated in steep terrain with lots of radiation from high rock walls and trees.