St. Mary area

After climbing out of the valley, we spent the day on solar slopes at middle and upper elevations. We dug 5 snowpits, looking for signs of the January drought and Valentine's Day weak layers. We did not find SH where we dug, but we did find some small facets sitting on top of the 2/14 crust on solar slopes. When the snow was cold, this combination did not yield many obvious signs of instability and did not produce propagating pit results. However, as the slab warmed up in the sun, we experienced some collapsing and associated cracking on this crust+facet combination. The general sense was that this wasn't a widespread issue yet, you'd probably have a find a very steep slope with a wind-stiffened slab to have a problem. However, looking forward to a set of storms this coming week, this layer is worth paying attention to. I would expect to see avalanche activity on this layer as we build and stiffen the slab on top. 

Small amounts of cracking and collapsing in wind loaded areas. Some of these occurred near/along ridgetops and involved obvious wind drifts. Others were mid-slope in upper elevation terrain where large wind dunes had formed. Maximum observed cracking/collapsing propagation distance was 40-50 feet.