Alpental Valley - Source Lake and Snow Lake Divide

It was a beautiful day in the mountains with cloudless skies, cool temperatures, and calm winds where we travelled. The snowpack was locked up and we observed no signs of instability. Travel conditions were the primary hazard, especially below tree cover, and even on the skin track. Slick ice and rock-hard frozen tree bombs made for a slow and tricky ascent. Folks who booted with crampons were able to move more efficiently and with far less effort than those of us on skis. A potential descent off the skin track below tree-cover looks ill-advised and ripe for an injury. Travel on sunny open slopes was more manageable, though still not easy. I utilized ski crampons to ascend a steep south-facing slope, as the surface didn't soften despite the widespread sunshine. Crusts were more breakable on slopes with some east or west exposure, but very firm and supportable on south aspects. Descending was a mixed bag with the hard and barely edgeable surface combined with refrozen tracks and old avalanche debris. The north side of the compass had soft surface hoar and facets which actually made for enjoyable sliding but getting to and from those locations was really challenging. It is hard to keep your feet under you all day right now, on both the up and the down. I also observed a near-miss on the fan when a skier lost their footing but was able to arrest their fall. 

The 1/10 crust complex seems to vary greatly from location to location, even sometimes when elevation and aspect are similar. The common thread seems to be weak snow above, within, or just below. Where I dug today, I found a few centimeters of hard crust capping another few centimeters of very weak and well-developed facets, followed by more very hard crust. The overall crust complex was the thickest I had seen thus far (22 cm). Plenty of weak snow from the surface down to the 1/10 as well, but no slab to drive instability until the next storm!

Very firm/icy surfaces under tree canopy. On open slopes facing the sun, we observed almost no softening, zero ski penetration, and the snow was barely edgeable. On shady aspects, almost 6" of weak surface hoar and facets made for quite enjoyable sliding. Not surprisingly, the lack of slab meant we did not observe any propagation in an extended column test.

We dug a snow profile at 4500' on a north-facing slope with an HS of 152 cm.  ECTX.

152-137 - F-4F - 6-8 mm surface hoar capping 1-2 mm near-surface facets

137-115 - 1/10 Crust Complex 

                137-134 - K 

                134-130 - 4F- .75-2 mm facets

                130-115 - K

115 - bottom of pit (80 cm) - 1F-P Rounds - Homogenous and strong