Quick report
Today, we rode into the motorized zone north of Cooke City. It was cloudy and winds were blowing moderately increasing later in the day.
We didn't observe any signs of instability such as cracking or collapsing.
The snow surface was frozen. It softened up quickly in the lower elevations but stayed mostly solid in mid and high elevations.
We dug on a north east facing slope at 9400ft. The total snow depth was about 8ft deep. The January facets seem to round and the upper snowpack about 4ft down is close to isothermal. It seems that the January facets and the surface hoar layer are neutralized itself due to the warm temperatures in the mid elevations.
Our second pit, we dug on a southwesterly slope. The snow surface was frozen and the upper foot of the snowpack is a solid mix of various melt freeze crusts. The snow is moist to the ground and we found frozen percolation channels in the upper and lower snowpack.
We found near surface facets on some slopes underneath a 1-2 inch surface crust.