Quick report
- Red Flags
- Heavy Snowfall
Snowpack
- Instability Comment
- <p>the northerly shots we skied were steep (enough), exposed, and committing, and it was hard to do any kind of stability test besides some (good) ski cuts - which we did - and some hard skiing, which we also did. </p> <p>I did an ECT at about 8+k feet on south facing to see if that hoar layer existed there and got nothing; only a good stiff rain crust now a ways down. I did a hand pit on the northerly aspects also around 8+k feet down in a sheltered area out of curiosity and got nice clean easy shears about 14-16" down and another layer 6" below that. But traversed a nice 35 degree test slope in that zone and got no action there. </p>
Overall it seemed like there was plenty of settling that happened overnight; first time I've seen little tents on scrubs for a while and the trailbreaking was noticeably shallower/easier than it's been over the last few days. South facing got a little heavy-ish around mid-day, so we switched around to north facing since our next-best south facing options involved skin track exposure. north facing was soft and perfect, of course, and no cakiness or slab development where we were. Upon our s. facing exit there was a slight zipper crust on s. facing slopes that had gone into "the shade" but it was no problem to ski. While the sun felt warm and heavied up the snow, there were no rollerballs, but the copious new snow with multiple layers that might be excited by the sun and ease of transitioning to north facing was impetus for us moving northerly.