Quick report
- Cracking
- isolated
I skied up to about 7100' and found deeper, lighter snow in protected areas. A bit of cracking under ski's in more exposed areas, but no propagation. Hollow spots in places, but no whoompfing. Hand shears showed about a foot of wind affected powder on top of a firm layer from the melt-down refreeze before the latest dump. There was a thin "skin" layer about 6" down that was reactive to hand shears. It must have warmed up during the storm for a short period of time? Up higher (above 6700') the snow was definitely deeper and had a sugary snow feel to it. My guess is the storm had wind associated with it, but the wind was tree height, not on the surface. No big wind drifts and the snow was soft and very skiable, even on open faces. With the storm that appears to be coming, it will add lots of pressure to this upper pack layer -a foot or more of non-cohesive snow on a firm base, won't handle large amounts of new snow without causing some instabilities IMHO.