Quick report
Skinned up into the sandbox in gulf of slides curious to see if we could find the faceted weak layer that we found in Huntington ravine on Sunday at a depth of 25 cm which gave CTE and ECTP12. Top ~5cm were soft and starting to soften from the sun. Notable, on top of this layer was a layer resembling surface hoar, but may have been a radiation recrystallization crust formation (which could explain its persistence in the sun) as noted by and observation made yesterday. Upon digging a snow pit, we found 4F hard snow over a knife hard crust. At 25 cm there was 1F hard snow transitioning to P hard snow and no faceted layer on an ice crust as seen in Huntington ravine. We then performed a compression test and found no fractures (CTN). We then headed over to Main Gulley. At 2/3 height on skier’s right, the top ~5 cm of snow on top of the crust felt punchy. A hand shear test indicated a non-reactive slab above the ice crust. Due to firmer conditions on skiers right, I descended on sunnier skiers left where I found softer spring-like conditions (no signs of instability).
Weather
- Cloud Cover
- clear