Quick report
During our tour in the Elkhorn mountains today, we observed 4”-5” of new snow that fell on Sunday and Sunday night. Where we were traveling, the new snow that we were traveling through was undisturbed by wind. Also, the new snow was resting upon a semi supportable melt freeze crust that formed during warmer weekend weather. In the morning it was mostly sunny and winds were calm. By afternoon, the skies were mostly high overcast. We did notice light to moderate south winds at the peaks. We observed no obvious signs of instability throughout our tour. No recent avalanches, no windloaded slopes, no shooting cracks or whumpfing. However, on two different snow pits, we observed propagation when performing Extended Column Tests (ECTP 13 and ECTP 22). The weak layer at both test areas was rounding facets that formed in late November/early December (TDL). This weak layer is now buried 2’ below the snow surface where we performed our tests. The buried 3” thick faceted weak layer is sitting upon a thick, well consolidated layer of snow and precariously supporting the 2’ layer of snow that makes up the upper snowpack. The poor snowpack structure that we observed is a glaring red flag sign of instability at these north and northeast facing slopes we were observing. The elevation of our snowpits was about 8400’ .