Observation: Park City Ridgeline

No surprises in a snowpit. Snow is weak and faceted to the ground. This particular pit had some interesting heat crusts that are being eaten by the temperature gradient, but I not sure how widespread these are. I did not observe any preserved surface hoar in this location. After no propagation in a snowpit I added snow on to a new ECT column and did get a propagating result failing within the near surface snow.

I traveled from upper Big Cottonwood to the PC ridgeline. On my travels I found some large, preserved, buried surface hoar on mid elevation protected northerly slopes. Snow was very weak to the ground.

In low angle terrain, most aspects except due S do not have a crust. At steeper angles south facing slopes are melted out at all elevations.

I dug a quick handpit on a 20 degree SW slope and found a breakable crust capped by about 1" of snow from yesterdays flurry. Underneath I found weak faceted snow that had consumed some of the old crusts.

On northerly slopes the general theme was weak snow to the ground that is losing notable structure.

In open terrain it appeared that most of the surface hoar had been knocked over by the light winds that we had today on W-S-SE aspects. I was able to find what I thought where some RR grains on a W facing slope.

Photo 1: Tracked out Silver fork.

Photo 2: Hand pit on low angle SW aspect.

Photo 3: Surface hoar lay to rest.

Photo 4: S and SW slopes lacking snow.

Photo 5: Viable skiing.

Mixed bag of snow. Breakable crust on S-SW where it is low angle, slopes above 25 degrees are generally melted at low and mid elevations. On ridgelines old wind effect exists. Good riding conditions can be found on W-N-SE at upper elevations. Although the snow is very weak it makes for good skiing if you can find the right terrain for it.