Quick report
4-6" fell in Alpine last night and about a foot of fresh had piled up at 8000' by midmorning today. Midafternoon winds shifted from WSW to NW and temps have dropped since then. A few inches fell in town this afternoon and it is has been snowing the way we like all evening: cold, light winds, dumping. I witnessed some spicy snowmobile slope stability testing at mid-elevations and it wasn't moving. One parked party of 7 sledders got a big whumph out of a flat meadow around 8k' that surprised them. I stomped on quite a few E-NE-N facing test slopes and cornices between 8k and 9k and got no movement. Rightside up, soft cornices, some windeffect but not that slabby on a windswept ridge at 9k. It rained in town yesterday morning and switched to snow mid day. Though snowpack is still very shallow at low elevations (just the new snow pretty much) the new snow has adhered nicely what was our local boney skating rink (the Greys River Road). On the 23rd I dug a pit at 8700' N facing 25* slope (N Salts). 245cm total snowpack: 3" of hot pow fresh on 1" of sloppy wet rain event with some water percolated through the next 2' of snow sitting atop that rain/sun/heat/cold crust from mid-December. 4' of solid base under that with a little sugar on the bottom. On that day I also saw a half dozen little point release crowns on some NNE rocky steeps around 9k' that slide quite often. Lots of trees came down in the big wind event a few weeks ago and quite a few trails still need clearing, so bring your chainsaw! Snowpack seems adequte for skiing above 7k' on shady slopes and above 8k' on sunny slopes. Aside from honey holes and high elevations it is still pretty shallow for aggressive backcountry snowmobiling.