Grand Prize Gulch

Traveling today was a game of wet snow vs dry. I spent most of the day on a ridgeline with access to both sunny slopes and shaded northerly terrain. On the southerly slopes, the snow surface was wet, and small loose snow avalanches were easy to trigger on test slopes. I also observed numerous recent natural avalanches on the southern half of the compass. On the north side of the ridge, the snow remained dry, but I was hesitant to venture into larger terrain for two reasons: first, the snowpack on this side was generally thin, only about 2 feet deep in some places; second, stepping off the ridgeline, I encountered a stiff snow surface with only a few inches of soft snow on top. In the end, I opted for a happy medium—skiing a lower-angle slope with a mix of hot pow and colder, west-facing snow.

Surface Conditions: Solars: surfaces on low-angle slopes ranged from breakable crusts on slightly sheltered west and easterly terrain to 5-10 cm of moist snow trending to wet on S, SE, and SW. On steep solars basking in direct sun, slopes were wet down to ~20 cm. Shaded: The upper 10-15 cm of the snowpack was soft and was made up of facets and some surface hoar in sheltered areas. 

Weak Layers: This area harbors a shallow snowpack even on previously wind-loaded slopes (HS: 80-125). The slab above mid-December weak layers is mostly 1F+ trending to F near the surface. I dug on an ENE-facing slope at 9700'. Here, the slab above was 85cm thick (HS 125) and produced no results in stability tests—ECTX. Of note, this snowpit was 100 yards from an avalanche, so it isn't out of the question that this slope had already collapsed, possibly giving skewed results.