Head of Rock Creek

Completed a perusal of the Toppings Lake area today. We noticed a shift back towards winter today. Temperatures remained cold throughout the day with little to no wind. Skies were mostly broken with an occasional appearance from the sun. Towards the end of our ride (2:00 pm), snow showers started to pick up intermittently. I'd estimate 1/2 inch of snow fell on our track between our arrival and departure. We were able to climb up to 9000' to dig down into the snow on a NE aspect. At 9000' we found a snow height of 60 inches with 4 inches of light-density snow on top. Digging down, we found 15 inches of newer snow sitting on near-surface facets. Below the faceting, a stout pencil-hard layer of snow is covering the January drought layer. Test results from the pit were variable. We scored an ECTX, with a PST45/100 thirty inches down. Our pit location contained some wind loading possibly preventing us from impacting the deeper persistent weak layers during our ECT. Lower down at 8500', we found a total snow height of ~45". During our testing, we were not able to provoke the near-surface facet layer below the new snow. 

No signs of instability were observed.