Gully 1

Found a trace of new snow from 4/10 above a melt freeze crust on north aspect up to 3000'.  Above 3000' there was 10-15 cms of settled storm snow that was fairly well bonded to older surfaces.  Pole probing along the route continues to reveal a highly variable upper snowpack.  

Dug a pit at 4000' in a location where I had found significant near surface facets a week earlier.  In this location entire snowpack consisted of some form of facets, with especially weak snow probed near the ground.  Snow pack could be described as having low strength, low stress, poor structure, and moderate propagation results.  Pit results produced ECTN 13 down 13 cms @ recent new/old, ECTN25 down 30 cms @ the 4/4 interface and most notably PST END (40/100) down 50 cms on 2mm faceted grain.  In areas where the snowpack is similar to this location human triggered avalanches remain a concern and sensitivity would likely increase with additional new snow load.

This pit strongly contrasts with a couple of snowpits we dug on 4/10 at the broad divide between Girls and Hoodoo, where we found a much deeper snowpack with good structure and no apparent layers of concern.  This contradiction is something we are repeatedly observing and highly complicates snowpack assessment for even experienced users.