Waterhouse

With the high avalanche danger forecast, we kept our terrain selection mellow and headed to Waterhouse today. Upon arriving around 10 AM there was roughly 15-18 inches of snow at the trailhead. The new storm snow was upside down with fist hard snow at the bottom and four finger wet compressible snow above that. Shovel shear and mitt pits on the new snow showed weakness within and failed on the weak snow below. I also observed buried near surface facets underneath the new snow on shaded aspects. As we climbed up, we observed cracking within the new snow and wind features along the way. Ski kicks and cuts were touchy and did not take much force. The chunks that did release were mostly soft slab and did not propagate super far. I dug a pit at 8200 feet on a north aspect. My extended column test only had ECTN results within the new snow and surprisingly nothing below that. However, the new snow was soft and not a true cohesive slab yet. Snowfall throughout our tour started intense in the morning and tapered off for a couple of hours during the day. During one of the breaks, I observed a period of graupel falling which got buried afterwards. After that snowfall increased until we left around 3 o'clock and the snow totals at this point was approximately 2 feet within this area. The wind was also in and out throughout the day, the occasional strong gusts was transporting snow from out of the trees, off the surface and depositing it everywhere. The deep snow made riding conditions a little tricky on the lower slope angle, but was still very enjoyable on the way out. 

Storm slab and wind features presented cracking with ski cuts and kicks.