Delia Creek

We covered a lot of different terrain today and found a variety of snow conditions. Previous winds didn't seem preferential to aspect or elevation, meaning we found soft and hard turns while ascending and descending slopes. The only common ground slopes shared was the upper pack becoming weak and sugary. In non-wind-affected areas, the upper pack is facets to the surface. Where the wind blew, facets rest below thin, brittle wind crusts (also facetting). 

Surfaces were a mixed bag of old wind crusts, wind board, and soft faceting snow. Below about 2500', solar slopes were softening from the afternoon sun, and will likely have a thin zipper crust once the sun sets. Below any crusts, the snowpack is sugary and faceted. In thinner places, the entire snowpack is made up of mid-pack crusts and soft facets. We dug on an east face at about 3000' and did not have significant results in stability tests (thin wind crusts were easily pulled off but didn't propagate in stability tests).