Northeast of Feather

The field team toured into the area Northeast of Feather peak. Winds were moderate from the South with obscured skies/valley fog, mild temps of -1.7 C in valley bottom, and precip of less than 1cm/hr in the morning. The afternoon was foggy as well, with light winds from the East, and some light flurries. Reduced visibility and flat light made for difficult travel, but the recent storm snow made for great turns. The storm snow since March 10th appears to have been redistributed by winds during the storm and varies from 5 to 40cm. We found a weak layer of facets buried beneath this storm snow at treeline (referred to as the March 10th layer in attached image). In the alpine, this weak layer included facets as well as surface hoar (see attached snow profiles for details). Our tests produced sudden planar results as well as propagation on this layer. In some areas the recent storm snow sits directly on hard, previously wind affected areas. One wind loaded area measured deeper than our 320cm probe! We measured ~200cm height of snow at treeline. We did not observe any new avalanche activity, but produced many whumpfs at treeline and in the alpine as we travelled, and some cracking around our skies where the storm snow was thinner (~17cm) and over lots of facets at treeline.