Quick report
Access to upper elevation terrain is very difficult if there isn't a road or trail to follow. Snow coverage becomes more connected at 6000' and up.
Lots of early season hazards are hiding under soft new snow.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 24
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Rain Elevation
- not observed
- Recent Snowfall
- 12
- Snow Avail For Transport
- small smounts
S-1 all day, with periods of S1. At 11:30, fog rolled in, leading to poor visibility the rest of the day. Winds were mostly light from the southwest, with sporadic moderate gusts at the ridgeline.
Snowpack
There is a different snowpack structure on the north side of the compass vs. the south in the Silver Valley-Bitterroots. I targeted south-facing aspects today and found:
-No evidence of old snow up to 6300' (top elevation I reached) on south-southeast facing slopes. The snowpack was widely made up of newer F-4F snow.
-There is a mid-pack raincrust. Snow depths vary on south facing slopes, but found the rain crust 20-25cm down. Faceting is developing both above and below, and the soft slab on top wanted to fail above the crust in several quick hand pits.
-With such a thin snowpack, there is some degree of faceting taking place from top to bottom.
Avalanche
None observed