Tuckerman Ravine

We hiked to the bowl from Hermit Lake around 11am to look for evidence to either support or challenge today's forecast danger rating. For ease of travel on foot we stuck to firmer supportive surfaces looking for patches of soft, wind drifted snow in sheltered areas between large sections of exposed rain crust. We ascended up lookers right of the ravine into the bottom of Lobster Claw, traversing underneath Right Gully and Sluice to Chicken Rock Gully. Despite limited visibility, we could see exposed rain crust, grey in color and rough in texture, all throughout the main track of Sluice. Pockets of wind-drifted snow we traveled though were isolated and unreactive with no cracking or collapsing. Overall we felt there was not enough snow in these isolated pockets of wind slab to produce much more than a D1 avalanche. 

In several hand pits and hand sheer tests in sheltered areas under Right Gully we found hard over soft (approximately 8cm of 1F over 4cm of 4F hard snow), upside down, structure on top of the rain crust requiring moderate force to shear the firm, 1F layer from the softer snow underneath. 

In a small, deeper pocket above lunch rocks we found right side up snow 4F over 1F. 

With very little snow in the forecast and continued cold temperatures, it will be interesting to keep an eye on these layers as well as the rain crust in advance of future loading events.