Heather Canyon

We have 1-1.5 ft of low-density, fluffy snow making for great riding conditions and resting over variable old snow surfaces. In most areas outside of wind loaded terrain, this new snow is still lacking slab-like characteristics. The JDL crust is incredibly inconsistent across the terrain, but one common theme is the weak, faceted snow beneath it.

I went out to investigate the JDL across more aspects/elevations around Heather Canyon. I dug on NE, E, and SW aspects between 5-6600 ft and I felt like I found something different in every spot I dug. This highlights how the JDL crust is quite variable across the terrain.

 In general, I found this crust 35-45 cm below the surface. In all locations, I found this crust harboring weak, faceted snow (1mm) beneath the crust with some light faceting occurring above it on NE aspects. That said, test results were inconsistent and honestly unremarkable compared to my test scores on Pea Gravel earlier this week. The overlying slab F/4F and is still lacking cohesion, which is likely contributing to inconsistent test results. The crust ranged from 3 cm thick on NE and 5-6 cm in other locations. 

What was consistent in tests was the 1/31 warm-up crust.  This layer sits roughly 20 cm below the surface and fades away somewhere above 6000 ft. It produced SP results with CT's on moderate scores, ECTN's, and easily popped out with tilt test. I suspect the explosive-triggered avalanche I observed also failed on this interface.