Bullion Basin

It was a stormy and active day in Bullion Basin. As alluded to in other sections, we were able to trigger shallow soft slabs with ease. You could get one to fail on almost every ski turn if you wanted to. They were mostly harmless because of their shallow depth, but were notable because of the terrain they were failing in. I wouldn't have wanted to see how big they were in more wind-loaded areas.

Apart from the avalanches, we observed plenty of blowing snow, new cornice development, reverse loading due to SE winds, textured surfaces, and shooting cracks in wind-stiffened terrain. Altogether, the signs were there and easy to recognize. We stayed out of bigger terrain.

Plenty of red flags out there today, including numerous new avalanches, shooting cracks, blowing snow, and moderate precipitation rates.

We found ~15cm of light new snow over a friable melt-freeze crust, which was the point of failure for most of the slides we encountered on Friday. 

When digging, small column tests failed at this interface (CT3) and again on a layer from last week's storm parade, likely 12/27 (CT22). The surprising result was full propagation on an extended column test. ECTP5 down 20cm. I tried to get a grain ID but it was nuking and blowing. Stay tuned.

Overall, the snowpack is settling well and rightside up over the Solstice Crust, but there are still easily identifiable layers and now some possible layers of concern.

The Solstice was down 121cm at 5840' NW.