Tumalo

Two of us toured from Vista Bute snopark toward Tumalo starting about 6:30AM. Snow was too deep at Dutchman for us to feel comfortable trying to go in the lot and parking along the road makes the plow drivers work harder. While touring small collapses were not uncommon. Dug a pit to the ground on the far southeastern ridge of Tumalo on our way up. The location was somewhat more protected but still windloaded with a total depth of 170cm. After that, we probed a few other spots on the way up to the peak averaging about 140cm. The pit was pretty much right-side up. from the Top: - Blower transitioning to fist to ~70cm - ice crust with some corn-like melt freeze ~3cm thick - ~70-120cm 1F - ice crust - ~120-170cm (ground) 1F Note: Crust at 70cm was sometimes breakable and sometimes not. Made for funny times transitioning and walking around when digging the pit :) Column test results: CT2 - 20cm - compacted blower sliding off CT21 - settling Q2 below ice crust at 70cm continued settling to CT24 but were not able to pull the layer off the column We ended up skiing off the far skier's right side of the bowl toward the SE. Mostly this was to stay away from other parties. As another observer noted many parties were party skiing and transitioning/hanging-out in the runout. Overall a great day! Have fun and be safe out there!

Quick report