OJay Area

Working down the OJay FSR today and stopped for a quick snowshoe down a cut line to a hillside above a oil lease. Day was kinda cold and snowing (-20°). Snowpack at 1500m on top of a treed ridge was shallow at 85 cm. All the layers of the winter were represented in my quick pit, but tighter and smaller. My compression tests didn’t have much for results, non planar breaks CTM14 down 30 and CTH25 down 50, progressive compression of facets. The 2 January melt crusts were down about 30 and 40 cm, with fresh snow above in several storm and wind layers, facets between, and various layers of melt crusts and facets below 40 cm to ground. There is major faceting and Depth Hoar in the 6-8 mm range at ground level. This definitely wasn’t mountain riding, if I’d had my sled it would have been a boondocking/ditch banging day with little risk, but it’s an interesting glimpse into the snowpack in an out of the way area.