Observation: Porter Fork

Left Porter Fork trailhead at 11 am and returned at 3 pm, so perfect timing for the storm's arrival. About 5-10 cms of dense snow at trailhead and it was bonding well to old snow surface. By frontal passage in the early afternoon was getting cracking in the new snow, as well as poor bonding to the old snow surface > 8000'. New snow was becoming sensitive during periods of very high PI rates and it was easy to get 30 cm (12") new snow soft slabs to crack at the interface with the old snow surface. No collapsing, although buried facet/crust combos are now found about 60 cms (2') down from the snow surface. Overall I do not think there was enough new snow/water weight to suddenly affect the midpack weaknesses that are being found outside of the upper Cottonwoods, and it is likely storm snow instabilities will have likely settled out by Christmas Day. My hunch is a very nice Christmas morning present for powder skiers.

Dense warm snow at lower elevations (6000'-7000'). Mid elevations had about 20 cms of rimed stellars that were being capped by low-density snow when we were exiting at 3 pm. About 1 meter of snow at 9000'.