Observation: Uintas

I've been traveling in lower elevation terrain lately taking advantage of the good coverage and stability. Today's travels were from 6800 ft.-9500 ft. on north, west and south facing aspects in relatively protected terrain. Warm temps and sun from this week have created breakable crusts on the south and west facing aspects we traveled on. I noted small grain facets under all the crusts that I looked at. On shady, protected aspects surface and near surface faceting was taking place but was very variable as to where these spots were. We were out of the wind zone so wind drifting wasn't an issue for us today. Snow pit tests reflected a right side up pack and did not produce propagation across extended column tests. Overall a solid snowpack where we traveled but looking forward, the variable snow surfaces, once buried by our next storm, will be the main focus of our avalanche problems. Total height of snow was 205cm (6.75") at 8900 ft. Weak interfaces that produced Q1 and Q2 shears but with medium to hard effort on column test were 26cms down (10"), 51 cms down (20") and 72 cms down (28") all on small grain facets. ECTN16 at 26cms down and ECTN28 51 cms down. I only tested the upper 33" of the snowpack. Low danger where we traveled today, moderate danger tomorrow if the storm materializes.

Warm temps from yesterday created variable thickness crusts on solar aspects but protected slopes on the north half of the compass were holding soft recrystallized snow. even at lower elevations.