Quick report
Bottomless in the Swan? Could such a thing be so? We headed out to Sixmile to find out. After a sled approach up the road (multiple trucks went up it during the day making sledding out a bit harder), we took the trail until breaking off and heading up a ridge. Speaking of breaking: it was knee deep and a proper workout to put in a skin track. We dug twice, once on a SE aspect at 6200ft and again at 6400ft on a SW aspect. Our main curiosities were how the new snow (which made up nearly half the current snowpack) was interfacing with old snow and how lower layers were taking the strain. Compression tests were generally unremarkable and while we got propagation in the old snow with extra force in our first pit, a second ECT in that pit did not propagate. Results were also unremarkable in our second pit. We skied low angles and it was both bottomless and also maybe even too deep for those flat angles. Winds were generally light or absent. Cloud cover was patchy, with occasional sun. Temperatures in the subalpine were below freezing. No accumulations happened during our tour. While the new snow essentially doubled the snowpack, lower elevations and along the summer trail are still somewhat sporty.