Elk Tracks

Headed up to Elk today to recalibrate after a week away and found some reasonable skiing by Island standards. We staged sleds at around km 3.5. Surfaces vary a lot depending on aspect and timing. Isothermal mush in direct sun at treeline and below, mostly supportive crust in the shade (as thin as 1 cm in the alpine), with a few cm of new snow on top at treeline and above, and a bit of everything in between as the sun and shade moved around and the day warmed up. We dug a profile on the highest north aspect we could find and located our surface hoar layer about 60 cm deep in dry snow (40 cm deep in moist snow on solars). It produced hard, resistant compression test results and no extended column test results. Probably will take a good bout of rain to wake it up, but it's there!