Cross Hill

On a short walk up to Cross Hill, I found no signs of instability like cracking or snowpack collapsing. While recent winds have moved snow around, I only found stubborn wind slabs 2-6" thick in most places. Below the recent snow, the January 26th rain crust/January warm-up crust was also unreactive in hand pits and snowpack tests. In my snowstability tests on a west-facing slope at 4000', I had no results. Overall, this lends itself to fair stability; although the structure of the snowpack is still not terribly inspiring, with weak snow near the ground capped by a stiff slab of snow. 

Upper Pack: Recent wind from earlier this week definitely did some work moving snow. Near Cross Hill, I found drifts 5-20cm thick on all aspects—more scouring on S and SE with isolated pockets of wind loading. Last week's snowfall and recent drifts fell on a thin zipper crust (buried 01/26). Whether you call it a melt-freeze crust or a rain crust, they are almost indistinguishable on many slopes; however, there is a thin layer of near-surface facets and fragments sandwiched between them. Hand pits and stability tests had no results on this new "layer".  

Buried Weak Layers: I dug on a west-facing slope at 4000'. Here, stability tests yielded no results (ECTX x2, HS 120cm). Generally, the structure is still poor, with weak faceted snow near the ground below a stiff slab of snow.