Observation: West Willow

Headed back up to the Monitors today, one reason was that I had broke the trail yesterday and thought it still might be there but I was wrong, no evidence of yesterdays trail and today it was much harder trail breaking due to another foot of snow the density inversion and upside down layering caused by the wind. Trail breaking was knee to waist deep all day. I noticed the density inversion the moment I got out of the car, there were crowns all over the steep snow banks and on the roofs in the upper lot at Solitude, these crowns were about 8 to 6 inches deep and once I got hiking noticed constant cracking on this same layering. This same density inversion was the culprit in the avalanche I triggered in West Monitor which I put on the avy page. The snow remained active on this density inversion the whole time I was out and it was quite sensitive. The visibility was bad most of the day so I couldn't really tell if there was a natural cycle up high but I suspect there was.

Photos: crowns showing the active density inversion, a photo of a fracture on the inversion I released on a test slope and some waist deep trail breaking.

With the wind and the heavy snowfall Considerable seemed appropriate today, and going with the same tomorrow.

There seemed to be about 25-30 inches total with about 12 new this morning then add on another 4 to 5 by the time we exited at 3:00pm. Light density powder with a density inversion about 6 to 8 inches down.