Upper Deep Creek

We toured up the Deep Creek Rd to the head of the drainage and to terrain SE of Billy's Peak. Snow depth increased above 7,400' on N to E aspect terrain. Surface hoar was fairly widespread in shaded avalanche terrain, but has a long way to go to persist to burial. The persistent slab problem exists in this area, but sensitivity to triggering is stubborn. Still plenty of obstacles to hit beyond the highpoint of the road in the 7,000' to 7,400' range. We noted evidence of a few old size D1 dry loose avalanches at the head of the drainage on mostly ENE to E aspect terrain above treeline.

Above 7,400' we had a ski supportable snowpack. Rain crusts in the snowpack are almost boot supportable, but not quite. We saw a similar snowpack structure to the N side Castle/Basin Ridge observation from 12/11. ECTP results on faceted crystals below a rain crust with more weak faceted snow and depth hoar below. There is surface hoar and/or developing near surface facets in many areas of shaded terrain. Spot probing the slope we dug our pit on revealed an HS of 80 to 100 cm. Probing at the bottom of the slope in lower elevation, sun exposed, lower angle terrain revealed an HS of 55 to 70 cm.