Gold Creek Snopark to Keechelus Ridge

It was a wet and stormy day. I took the snowmobile up to Microwave Hill and then skied around to get a feel for how this week's storm snow was shaping up. As mentioned in the snowpack section, numerous weak points exist in this week's snow, most of which should be short-lived.

The snow was nice and dry in the morning, allowing for easy and fun travel. Tests indicated only slight slab character. Some drifting was observed near ridgelines, but the wind was generally light.

However, daytime warming noticeably changed it, and it was getting a bit upside down by the time I left the field. I noticed snow starting to fall out of the trees, and the surface was moist and heavy.

Fantastic riding conditions for both snowmos and skis. Basically, free refills all morning. I got soaked, though. 

Isolated cracking of the surface localized to my skis or snowmobile.

There is roughly 6-12" of snow over last week's warmup crust at mid elevations. Within this snow, I repeatedly found failures with compression tests, tilt tests,  shear tests, and handpits. In some instances, failures occurred on isolation or easy (CTE). 

The warm-up crust is roughly 4cm thick and not particularly stout. Below it, another 15 cm of junk meltforms exist above drier snow. During compression tests, I repeatedly got sudden failures below the "crust" in the meltforms (CT21 SC, CT24 SC). 

Under tree-cover, the crust is more stout and there is less new snow over the top. The new snow was easily sliding on this surface with ski cuts.

Lower elevations are beat up. There was some new snow, but the warmup limited accumulations.