Quick report
There was less avalanche activity than expected (although it was tough to see if there were any avalanches). My layer of concern was a mid storm density change about a foot down but beneath that, I found well bonded layers. Everywhere I traveled the snowpack had been wind-affected.
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- obscured
- Wind Loading
- moderate
- Rain Elevation
- 3000ft
- Recent Snowfall
- 50cm
- Snow Avail For Transport
- large amounts
Stormy day with S2 (inch an hour) snowfall and light-mid wind.
Snowpack
From 4000-5000ft, snow depths varied widely. Some exposed slopes had only 6" of snow over the Solstice Crust, 2ft was the average and 3ft over the crust was common. Clearly there was lots of wind redistribution.
I did constant hand shear tests, which produced stubborn mid-storm failures about 1ft deep. There was a slightly harder (4F+) layer sitting over a slightly softer (4F-) where the layer failed.
The lower half of the snowpack above the Solstice Crust was well bonded to the crust and other thinner nearby crust layers.
I stomped on test slopes with very few results. In 2 locations I got small amounts of slab release that didn't span far, about 1ft deep at the noted failure plane.
At 3500ft there was only about 6" of moist new snow over the Solstice Crust.