Observation: Moab

A beautiful, cold, calm day in the La Sals with a lot of new snow! I didn't observe too much activity as I toured but did take note of some settlement cones (see picture), wind loading up high, and some surface hoar growth in a few shaded/protected areas. After digging a quick pit on a west-facing slope, I observed the top 10 cm of snow fractured with ease and had a spongy, malleable quality to it that didn't seem to bond well to the snow below. I guess we will have to see what happens there. I also had consistent fractures at about half depth of the snowpack (see snow profile). This layer was concerning and I had consistent failures here. Depth hoar was present above the ground but I wasn't able to observe the whole snowpack collapsing on this.