Beehive

A few observations from beehive today: The new snow fell on a highly variable surface, and is already quite variable in depth and quality. The top couple centimeters is surprisingly firm in most places above treeline. We dug a pit on a S/SW slope at 9600’ and did not observe a failure. However, we did encounter isolated shallow, cracking slabs near ridgelines on southern aspects. No collapsing or natural slides. We dug another pit on a NE aspect at 10400’ on a route we hoped to ski. This pit had propagation at ECTP 15 at the new/old snow interface about 30 cm down, but I was unable to replicate the failure on a second test. We decided to not ski that slope. The snowpack was fairly uniform in this particular spot and seemed promising for stability in the future, but it wasn’t quite ready today.

Quick report