Observation: Banana Days

Toured from spruces to Banana days via summer road and rocky skintracks. Upper bowl is skiable snow depth of ~30-40cm, which are facets through and through. Some faceting crusts down 5-10cm are present on NW aspects. Snow arrived around 930 AM with peak morning precip rates around 11:00 AM, accumulating about 0.5cm/hr low density snow with no wind off the ridgetop. Sheltered flats both at valley floor and mid-slope hold surface hoar, which are just an amusement on top of a snowpack of facets. Within the faceted snowpack, small sluffs ran in steeper terrain, but not far.

The distribution of snow cover, and thereby weak layer, is widespread on the West side of Day's Fork, and new accumulations will quickly make this area dangerous. We will not be returning to this area for some time, and I recommend against taking this report as a signal that it is safe, let alone skiable.