Quick report
Went up Maggie’s today, with the intent of staying away from the northern half of the compass. A trace of new snow was at the trailhead, with an inch or two at the summit. These rested on very firm surfaces everywhere, and in some areas, the brisk E winds had stripped away the new snow, exposing these crusts. This made the skiing on a SE slope variable, but the crust was edgeable the whole way. There was no warming of the snow due to the wind. I stopped to dig on a NE slope at 8300, and HS in this location was just under 3 m. The crust-facets-crust were buried 1.26 m down at this spot, with a 1F to P slab atop them. The strength of this slab kept ski pen at all locations and aspects less than 5 cm, and even boot pen was only 10-15 cm. Despite the depth of the weak layer, I did get a SP failure in a CT at 21 taps, though I was just planning to set up a DT. There was too much snow to move to set up a PST. I did not experience any collapses or whumpfing, but I stayed away from all NW-N-NE slopes, and even used very cautious route finding through the E facing Headwall above Granite Lake. On my exit down the Cascade Creek drainage, I found debris from several large slides, originating from most of the major terrain features on the South side of Maggie’s. These all appeared to have run last Friday or Saturday, and had debris piles that were 4-6 feet deep. They came from start zones that faced E or NE, and in one spot, I could still see the crown up high. Despite warm air temps, the only moist snow I encountered was below about 7100’.