Lake Creek

There was cracking and collapsing almost everywhere I traveled today, except down low where I was touring through sagebrush barely covered by snow. Above 6500' on shadier aspects, total snow depth ranged from 1.5 to 3.5 feet of snow.  Wind loading was observed on multiple aspects and elevations.

There were multiple collapses along the uptrack on a northwest ridge, with one booming whump as I moved onto a low-angle north slope near the top of the ridgeline ~7500'.

This storm's snow fell on dirt and sage brush on south, southeast, and southwest aspects. West aspects under 6500' were  also dry prior to this storm.

Northwest and north aspects received 30-40cm of new snow from the storm, forming a 4F hardness (four-finger) slab atop a crust. This crust ranged from a stout 5cm thick and supportable at 6800' to 1cm thick and brittle at 7200' and up. Well-developed facets occupied most of the remainder of the snowpack below this crust.

Northeast and east aspects had visible wind loading stretching the entire slope down to the valley floor.

We dug a pit on a north aspect at 7500' HS 105, HST 40cm resting on 1-2cm crust. The new snow was 10 cm of F (fist) hardness over 30 cm of 4F (four-finger) hardness slab. Between this new snow and the crust 40cm down was a thin layer of facets where snowpack failed giving us test scores of ECTP1 and ECTP6.