Gothic Mtn

The small and incremental bits of new snow in this area haven't significantly changed conditions yet, except for some shallow drifted slabs at higher elevations.  Our primary concern remained the old, hard slabs from the windy days of yore. These old slabs are now well disguised below 6" of low-density new snow, but reminded us to stay wary of concave catchments with a couple of collapses.  In sheltered terrain, entrainment potential for dry loose avalanches continues to gradually increase as well; fresh slabs have yet to develop here below treeline but it felt like a little more snow and settlement and that will change.  

In steep terrain below treeline, ski pen is about 12" to 16" through the new snow and weak facets below.  Once we gained elevation to 10,500', the mid-December wind events left a firm and variable snow surface below the new snow, reducing the ski pen to the top 6" of new snow, deeper in drifted features.  The storm interface from there on up varied from inpenetrable wind hardened snow to pockets of faceted snow.  Stability tests on these wind crusts did not propagate, but we did experience two collapses where the old, hard wind drifted slabs collapsed on weaker facets below.  On steep southeast aspects, the storm interface was a thick, strong crust with low-density new snow above it.