4th of July

We observed no obvious signs of instability. Crusts in the upper snowpack did not produce unstable snowpack test scores. Deeper weak layers seemed unlikely to trigger in areas with a uniformly thick and dense overlying slab.

No signs of instability.

Surface Snow: 
We found ~5 cm of new snow. We expected this new snow interface to look bad below the inversion and along the creek, but there was a notable lack of facets or surface here, just about 15 cm of snow atop the Christmas Eve crust. The new snow appeared to be bonding well everywhere we looked. 

Crusts:
The New Year temp/sun crust was most prominent at middle elevations above the inversion and on sunnier slopes. It was capped with ~5cm of moist snow. We dug to look at the Christmas Eve and Solstice rain crusts in many locations from 7,400-9,300'. We found 1 mm FC beneath the Christmas Eve crust that produced some rough shears. Overall, Christmas Eve looked worse, but neither looked alarming.

Basal Facets:
By the time we reached elevations with basal facets, the overlying slab had become very dense and thick. On a N @ 9,100, we found a 45 cm thick basal layer of moist, rounding facets interspersed with crusts. Hand harndesses ranged from 1F- to 4F+. The Overlying slab was 130 cm thick with over 50 cm of P- at the base.