Tincan/Common Bowl

We found reactive snow on Tincan today, with two skier-triggered avalanches in Common Bowl. These failed within the new snow, and nobody was caught or carried. We found the 2/14 buried surface hoar layer 3' down in one pit at 2000', and did not find it in a second pit on a south aspect at 3000'. We did see evidence of multiple natural avalanches that likely failed on this layer.

There were two skier-triggered avalanches in Common Bowl. Each looked to be around a foot deep, failing within the new snow. They were about 50' wide, and ran maybe 100'. We also saw evidence of larger natural avalanches near the top of Kickstep and Wolverine, both of which seem to have released in the middle of yesterday's storm.

There was about 12" of new snow from the past 24 hours. This is sitting on 4-10" soft snow from the previous storm, which is sitting on a crust up to around 2000' or maybe slightly higher.

We dug two pits, one on a west aspect at 2000' and one on a south aspect at 3000'. We were looking for the layer of buried surface hoar that has been causing problems recently. We found it in our lower pit, but not in our upper pit. At 2000', the layer was buried about 3' deep, and was still standing upright. The grains were about 10-15mm, which is big for surface hoar. We did not do any stability tests because the feedback we've been getting (avalanches, collapses) is giving us enough information to know that this layer is a problem wherever it is present.