Plasse

I went from Tragedy Springs to Plasse Peak today, on skis to evaluate conditions before I try to snowmobile this area later. I found better coverage than expected, though it's still fairly shallow for aggressive off-trail snowmobiling. I did see a few snowmobile and snowbike tracks on generally conservative lines. Snowpack on shaded slopes was between 2-3ft and supportable to skis. Snowmobile tracks also indicated the snowpack was supportable to machines.

I found a concerning graupel/crust/facet layer down roughly 8" from the surface. This coincides with a graupel layer I've seen the past few days elsewhere, but in this area today the crust was well defined and it had weak facets under it. Several ECTs between Porthole Gap and Plasse Peak did not propagate on this layer - instead they consistently propagated on facets at the ground. The graupel/crust/facet layer displayed the characteristics of a weak layer but did not have a slab above it in the places I looked.

Surface conditions ranged between wet and sticky on warm slopes, and a combo surface hoar/near surface facet layer on cool slopes.

Several ECTs propagated on facets at the ground