Observation: White Pine

General observations from a day out with friends: Previous reports of generally stable conditions and healing faceted layers from Little Cottonwood Canyon seem correct. The snow feels much different in LCC than the Park City ridgeline or Mill Creek where the snow is about half the depth with the faceted layers still down there. I didn't graph it but I dug one snowpit at 8,200', NE facing on a gentle slope and found a little over a meter of total snow and surprisingly no concerning weak layers. No propagation on extended column tests and compression tests. Similar results on quick hand pits and probing. There are tracks in larger, consequential terrain without triggering avalanches. For instance, the northwest aspect of Red Baldy has quite a few tracks including from the summit. We felt comfortable descending lower-consequence 35-degree slopes in the forest on the Spire. That thick, warm, dense snowstorm a couple storms ago was a fabulous base-builder and helped to settle the deep, faceted layers.

Surface snow is several days old, dense and surfy, rimed and slower than powder.