Taylor Mountain

New snow depths on Taylor are around 6-8" with up to 16" observed in wind loaded areas along ridge lines. The snow from the past few days has settled a bit, but for the most part is still unconsolidated and low density. Sluffing was observed in steep terrain, but it was sluggish and did not entrain much snow. Dug a pit on an east facing slope at 9,800' in a location that had a bit more of a slab due to light wind loading. In this particular spot, 16" (41 cm) of new snow had been deposited on a layer of 5 mm surface hoar with about 5" of well-developed facets sitting below. Propagation was observed on the 4th tap (ECTP4) and failed on the layer of buried surface hoar at the new/old interface.

On a separate note, many, many rocks are lurking just below the new snow surface. Keep those tips up.

Cracking and collapsing was limited to isolated pockets along ridge lines where light winds have formed more of a slab in the new snow.