Quick report
We found between 6"-10" of soft, dry snow from the storm earlier this week. Although winds were calm all day today, we saw widespread evidence of wind-drifted snow from the last 48 hours on all aspects from 7400' to 7900', but only witnessed isolated cracking. Beneath the new snow, we found several crusts with weak, faceted snow in between, with the hardest crusts and most pronounced facets on Southern aspects. Still, we got no alarming results in any of our snowpack tests.
Weather
- Air Temp
- 26-31
- Cloud Cover
- few
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- 15-25
- Snow Avail For Transport
- moderate amounts
Temps were just below freezing all day, keeping the snow dry where we toured. Winds were surprisingly calm all day with generally clear skies.
Snowpack
Despite the uninspiring structure (crust-facet sandwich) that we found in the top 2 feet of the snowpack, we got no propagation in any of our snowpack tests and no sudden failures in any of the facet layers. We did not travel in avalanche terrain today, but there were no signs of natural or human-triggered avalanches in Hoffer Basin. It appears, for now, that the snowpack is handling the new snow well.