Council Mtn

We found 7-10 feet of snow with 6-10 inches of new snow with fresh sparkling surface hoar on the top. We had light Northeast winds. Our test pit on a North aspect showed propagation (ECTP 21) 57 cm below the surface, on a buried surface hoar layer from early December that produced natural avalanches.

We traveled semi cautiously with respect for the overhanging cornices and wind effected upper elevation slopes, side-hilling and sled cutting inconsequential representative steep North and East slopes without signs of instability except releasing one small, D1- harmless wind slab on a South ridge . We traveled North to south on the East side of the range observing many fresh natural soft wind slab avalanches in the new snow/ upper foot below the cornices on East and North aspects. Most were D2 to D2- . Overal stability was fair but there was potential to trigger a wind slab in leeward terrain.