Hay Cr.

Today we ditched the skis and rode the sleds up to the Whitefish Divide via Hay Cr.

• There seemed to be less wind affect than in the Swan range where I was on monday.  All day we only crossed one very small sliver of windboard.  The rest of the ride was in a fairly uniform 4-6 inches of new snow.
• Pits were punched on NE and SE aspects.  No propogation in our ECT's.  We found the mid Jan. crust 70-100 cm down.  
• Our SE pit had results of PST 30/100 (End) in the facets below the mid-Jan. crust.  This was the same aspect/elevation of the two older avalanches we crossed.  
• We found widespread surface hoar above 5500', however, it was pretty well knocked down by the sun on any exposed slope by mid afternoon.
• Observed modest rollerball, loose dry and loose wet activity considering the intense sun.  

We road one at a time on steep SE slopes, othewise the riding was great and we felt very comfortable going anywhere the sleds would allow.  

We did not see any instabilities in our pits, around our machines or on slopes we could see.

PST 30/100 (End) on a SE aspect at 7000'.  There still is structure that has a persistent weak layer in it.  

Shaded aspects have the layers of Christmas and Mid-Jan crust (buried 70 cm).

45 cm down on North aspects there is very thin melt/freeze crust(less than .5 cm).  It is not supportable, and does have a layer of small facets beneath it.  It did not produce any unstable results in snowpits.