Core Lodge Whiteout

Very windy snowy day in Core for an AST1 field day. There were cracks and propagation in drifts in the parking lot and visibility was very poor so we stayed in the trees behind and below the cabin. Anything open was heavily wind affected but the trees held lots of deep fresh powder. We dug a pit around 1600 m and found lots of results in the easy range in various layers of the new storm snow. Estimated 50 cm of new snow since Friday in our sheltered pit. No propagations on any layer in extended column tests, but likely with a bit more wind affect and denser slabs we would have seen more propagation. We did tests down to 150 cm and didn’t find any signs of the the Surface Hoar reported in the Pass, but we did have a planar failure in the hard range down about 80 cm on a layer of facets. It snowed heavily all day, and the winds remained high with significant drifting and transport all day.