Spring pow

Today we found good riding conditions in sheltered areas, with about 10 cm of new snow from Monday. The short periods of sun and warm temperatures meant the new snow was getting a little cakey, but still fun. Winds were moderate southerlies, and we expect there are still some stubborn pockets of wind slab in the alpine on convex features or near ridgetop. We didn’t see any new avalanches. We dug at 1200 m on a northeast facing slope and found between 105 and 175 cm of total snow depth. 30 cm of soft snow overlies the melt freeze crust which formed a few weeks ago during a warming event. At 90 cm deep we found large facets which sit below the final remnants of the December weak layer (it’s almost completely broken down). These facets did not produce propagating Extended Column Test results but we did get repeatable hard Column Test results (CTH22). Below the facets, there are moist grains to ground, which show good strength and a rounding/bonding trend. At the moment, we would only be worried about this layer with very hard loads like a big rain event or extreme warming.