East of WMR

We toured east of WMR today to get more snowpack data after the intense winds on Thursday.

• Widespread wind-affect has turned the surface snow into a stiffened styrofoam.  The buffed surface was fast for skinning, but punchy for skiing.
• We did not get propagating results in our snowpack tests: ECTN12, CTN, and 95/100 for our Propagation Saw Test. 
• We skied east and southeast slopes that had cross-loaded wind drifts without signs of instability.
• At our final descent, we got a shooting crack at the entrance of the south-facing slope of Half Moon, which encouraged us to ski the timbered edge.

Isolated harmless cracking in wind drifts under our skis and one isolated shooting crack on Half Moon.

 Ski pen less than 10 cm most places. Winds 2/29 left a 110-20 cm thick, 1-Finger hard slab of drifted snow on most slopes above 5500' elevation. Many slopes have filled in notably in the past 1-2 weeks. A few soft patches deep in sheltered drainages. Below 5500', open spots on solar slopes had some sun-affected snow and the whisper of a crust.

Snow profile at 6450 feet, ENE slope. See profile graph. 

• HS 203 cm, with 2/3 ice/ crust complex down ~ 70 cm.
• Thin, indistinct, and mostly unreactive layer of rounding facets a few centimeters above that (ECTX, CTN; PST end 95/100); only unstable result Deep Tap Test 22 Sudden Planar). 
• Softer snow below the slab failed but did not propagate or collapse in tests (ECTN 12; CT 12 RP).

The one shooting crack we found occurred on a south-facing slope; the crack extended down about 15 cm to a degrading sun crust. The wind slab on this slope felt softer - more like 4F - and perhaps slightly moist.