Paulina Peak

With the incoming snow I really focused on looking for the buried surface hoar that Elliott observed on Tuesday.  It didn't seem to be widespread, but I was able to find both layers in a northeast facing start zone at 7,800 ft (see the attached video and pictures).  These persistent weak layers could very well lead to avalanches when new storm snow piles up above them.  If you feel like you could use a refresher on just what surface hoar is and why it can be problematic check out the avalanche encyclopedia:  all about surface hoar.

There had been a light wind from the northwest so many of the slopes leading into the big steep ski runs from the peak were actually scoured a bit, but the wind today was light and limited to the highest elevations.

We are still finding poorly developed facets at the base of the snowpack.  These facets are "poorly developed" and 4-finger hardness (as opposed to fist hardness).  In my mind they are less of a concern than the burried surface hoar layers, but they could be triggered from shallow trigger points, or if we see significant new snow, smaller avalanches could step down to this deeper layer.  While unlikely, the resultant avalanche would be very large.

There's still not a ton of snow out there.  I measured 10-20 cm. at the lake and then 65 cm at 7,100 ft.