Marmot / 4068'

Another beautiful day at the pass. A light breeze kept the snow surfaces and warming in check. Our terrain choices kept our interaction with instabilities limited but we observed a few tracks on steeper solar aspects and some parties that had crossed small loaded features without incident. Snow from last week has increased in density from some recent periods of wind and sun but is holding up well. Our travel across solar aspects was soft and consistent and on shady aspects we encountered the same, only drier. I'd imagine wet activity to increase in the absence of wind keeping things cool and it seems like our grasp of the persistent slab problem is narrowing a bit towards more specific aspects and terrain features. 

Recent snow was thickened by some wind on the 18th and further settled by sunny periods yesterday and today. We encountered one settlement (collapse) from the ridge on the SW slope just above the Catcher's Mitt but it failed to initiate an avalanche. While we observed some minor wet loose and rollerballing activity in steep solar aspects we encountered no instabilities in our travels. Cornices we observed on marmot and 4068 were stiff and behaved stubborn.