Gulley 1

We toured up to mid elevation in gully one to check out the recently buried surface hoar as well as older persistent weak layers in the bottom of our snowpack. Recent snow accumulation has continued to bury brush and improve coverage. Surface snow was unconsolidated powder with a thin ice crust on the surface up to 2700 feet. Thin isolated windslabs were scattered around above 3000 feet, but were difficult to identify under a thin coating of recent snow. 

We observed a couple of small isolated collapses below the brushline.

We found about 25 cm of unconsolidated new snow capped with a thin rain crust from road level to about 2700 feet. Above this elevation, the rain crust fades, and new snow depths increase to 40cm+.  The recently formed 1-2cm surface layer that formed last week was easily observed underneath the new storm snow. The storm slab/surface hoar interface produced few signs of instability, limited to isolated cracking and a couple of small collapses. Small test slopes were stubborn to react. Despite the lack of significant reactivity this setup will remain a concern. Increased loads and/or a stiffer slab on top of the large surface hoar may result in increased sensitivity over time.  

We dug pits in a couple of locations to take a look at the weak faceted snow at the base of our snowpack. Below 3000 feet, we are continuing to find very weak faceted snow about a meter deep in the snowpack with even weaker snow (depth hoar) at the very bottom (See snow pit).  Thick rain crusts and dense old snow are bridging the buried weak layers in many areas, giving a bit of strength to the setup, although the structure is still very poor. We could not affect the buried weak layer through loading with a skier or with ECT tests, however our PST test(PST30/100 end)  shows that this layer could propagate easily once triggered.