Beehive/ Bear Basins

The snowpack is looking much stronger in the lower- and middle-elevation bands of the Beehive area. No signs of instability other than localized cracking on recently drifted slopes. The unusually warm weather helped to harden and round the basal facets on slopes with a full-depth snowpack - this is certainly an abnormal process for December and early January, but here we are.

We dug on a NE-facing slope in Bear Basin below the prayer flags and found that the facets near the ground were 1 Finger hardness and generally rounding (ECTX results). I poked around a lot on the NW-facing shoulder coming back into Beehive. No formal pit. The deeper areas felt similar, with a harder, more consolidated snowpack, BUT in areas with a thin, wind-stripped snowpack, the dominant process is faceting. These spots correspond to the starting zones of the Tyler's area, thus will be something to watch with the next storm. 

For now, stability is good, with isolated wind-slabs as the lingering hazard. These can certainly cause people problems in steep or technical terrain. In the upper-elevation band, I would be a bit more concerned about wind slab avalanche problems and evaluate basal facets on slopes that generally remained colder.