Newberry Monument

This morning I traveled through some of the nicest snow I've been in this year.  Sadly there wasn't much of a base underneath it.  It is still relatively shallow at Paulina and travel through the forrest or off trail would be hard in all but the highest elevations.  At the lake I found 30 cm (about a foot) of snow.  The top 15 cm. (6 in) was from the current storm and nice and light.  Beneath that was a heavy duty rain crust from earlier in the week.  Higher on the peak there was significantly more snow.  At 7650 ft. I found 65 cm. (just over 2 feet) of snow with 25 cm. of more recent storm snow. 

In some locations I was able to find the basal facets that Elliott found on his tour on Tuesday.  They were definitely not widespread, but where I found them they were very weak (see attached video).  This weak layer is right above the ground and can be easily felt by stabbing a pole handle or shovel/probe through the stout crust.  **I think that in the video I mention that 50 cm. is the deepest snow that I found.  I ended up touring higher on the peak and it was deeper there.**