Quick report
Our Pro 1 class dug practice profiles in the #3 trees S of the JSST, with goals of practicing professional-level profiles as well as investigating the effects of yesterday's warmth and rain. We found 60-80cm of snow remaining in the trees, moist snow in the 20cm closest to the ground, a variety of crusts and 1F to P hard melt forms in the middle 30-40cm of the snow pack, and roughly 10cm of fresh snow on top of a robust rain crust. A large temperature gradient existed in the top 10cm (-9deg to 0deg C), but the snow was isothermal at 0deg C in the rest of the snow. We found the moist snow freezing quickly in the cold air once we exposed our profile walls. As forecast, the upper layers of snowpack is pretty locked up. We toured to the 2008 runout zone in Hillman's, witnessed significant snow transport (even some snow devils/tornados), but did not linger long with temps in the low teens F and strong to extreme wind speeds. Good coverage remains on Hillman's. At least two trees are down across the upper sections of the JSST, but both are passable on skis. The upper third of the JSST contained enjoyable packed powder, the lower two thirds remains the iced over horrorshow we're experienced the last several days.