Observation: West Bowl

Travel was in Grizzly, Davenport hill, West Bowl, and Emmas.

Winds were blasting mostly out of the W/SW.

We did get a few small soft slabs failing on the rain/rime crust about 8-12 inches deep. These slides traveled fast and far if the slope had a steeper pitch. Cracking was going down to this layer. No collapses noted.

I dug a pit on the southerly facing terrain around 10,000 ft and got a CT20 Q2 on facets below a sun crust about a foot from the ground. I dug another pit near the top of West Bowl in NE facing terrain. I got a CT18 Q2. There was about 8 inches of damp facets from the ground up, then 2 inches of dry facets where the failure occurred.  The failure did not have much energy, but I ran into an Avy II course who dug nearby and got significant results on ECT's. Basically what I saw in the more suspect E and N facing terrain we traveled in is mostly unconsolidated snow sitting on top of facets. Once the snow pack gets more of a load its going to be suspect, especially on E,N,W facing terrain. I would expect the southerly facing terrain to potentially fail near the ground on the facets with enough wind and snow.

Another thing to note is that the rain/rime crust has a bunch of spacial variability. I did not really feel it poking around West Bowl. However in other places like the Cabin Run on Davenport hill it was pronounced. Upon our exit today the rain/rime event was burried under about 12 inches of snow. It was reactive in hand pits and ski cuts.