East Beckwith

The snowpack in the East Beckwith area fits nicely with the rest of the Northwest Mountains forecast zone.  The snowpack is just deep enough for basal weak layers to round and gain strength.  Widespread natural avalanche activity during the Thanksgiving storm leaves few steep slopes with an intact snowpack.  The likely way to trigger an avalanche would be from a shallow spot on a slope, like on variable-depth alpine terrain or a more recently formed slab on an old bed surface from wind drifting after the storm.

We did not experience any signs of instability while touring or in test profiles on northerly slopes near or below treeline.

We traveled largely on northerly-facing terrain to 11,700 feet.  In this area, the snowpack ranged from 75 to 100cm deep.  The bottom of the Thanksgiving slab was typically up 1 finger hard in sheltered areas and generally supportive to boots.  Basal facets have increased in stiffness over the past week to 4 finger hard and showed clear signs of rounding.  Stability tests at two sites produced ECTx.

Surface hoar was huge (5-7cm) at lower elevations (see image) and decreased in size as we moved up in elevations.  Near-surface facets provided great ski quality but will make for a problematic layer once a new slab forms.