Croy Canyon - Red Elephant

We did not see any avalanches that released in the past 24 hours or signs of instability today. We traveled in areas where people had not been this winter, but we didn't cover that much ground in a short outing. We avoided avalanche terrain, and the extent of recent wind-loading was impressive.  

We saw a few small avalanches in heavily wind-loaded terrain, but all looked weathered and probably occurred early in the morning on Feb 7. We did not experience any cracking or collapsing; this was a bit surprising as we were in a lot of terrain that probably had no tracks yet this winter. A group of 5 snowmobilers rode all around the Richardson Summit area (but stayed off anything steep) and had one significant collapse when the 5th member of the group rode up to the other 4 riders.

HS=about 1m around 6600-7100', about 60cm near 6000'. HST=about 55cm near 7000', about 20-30cm near 6000' (several rain crusts interspersed with DF and FC and melt-freeze).  

Rain crusts: Multiple rain events to over 7000' during the Feb 1-6 storm event, thinning to mostly faint razor crusts by 7100'.  From 6000-6400', the most recent crust was ski supportable, about 2-3cm thick with 10cm of PP above it.

7100' N (see photos): Pit site was on a gentle (21*) slope just below a ridgeline - it was wind affected but not scalloped/heavily loaded. HS=105cm. The 60cm thick February slab had a mix of F, 4F, 1F, and P hard layers with multiple thin crusts and a little graupel in the upper 30cm. 1/31 presented as 2cm SH being embedded into the layer above but not the stout crust below it. ECTP29, 28, SP/Q1 at 46cm (SH layer, appeared to break at the bottom of the layer). CT 8 Q3 on upper most rain crust @92cm, CT14-17 Q3 on a few crust or graupel layers from 70-86cm, CT21 Q2 @44cm on FC below the 1/3 rain crust (a couple cm below the SH layer).