Fourth of July

There is enough "meat" to the slab overlying the basal weak layer to keep a skier on top of the slab and to produce unstable snowpack test scores. The likelihood of triggering slides is not high but remains a worrying possibility. You'd be most likely to trigger a slide in areas where more recent wind slabs are adding stress to the weak layer and strength to the slab. 

We did not experience any collapsing. Cracking was limited to very short cracks adjacent to skis while moving through piles of weak snow.

At lower elevations and on middle elevation slopes that lacked significant snow prior to 11/30, the entire snowpack is faceted and there really is no slab. However, as you gain elevation the snowpack deepens, the coverage of the 11/30 weak layer increases, and the slab has enough meat to produce consistent unstable snowpack test scores. We stopped to dig a pit a 8,500' on a NE-slope, as the slab began to be supportable. Here, HS=60-70cm, and 11/30 weak layer is down 45cm. The slab overlying the weak layer grades from F-- at the surface to a 10cm interval of 1F at the base. 11/30 weak layer is composed of advanced FC in the upper half of the layer and DH in the lower half, with some evidence of improvement in the weak layer (losing some corners on big cups, striations less pronounced and evident than previously). This slab+weak layer combo produced ECTP 17 and 14 (both down 45cm) and CPST 22, 23, and 22/100, all to END down 45cm. 

Surfaces: weak snow, weak snow, and more weak snow. Ongoing SH event has constructed widespread SH up to 1cm, this has been melting/wilting on solars but is present and standing on most other slopes. Underneath this, find very weak (F--), small-grained FCsf on shaded slopes. Solars have a stack of crusts with intercalated facets, with the nature and thickness of these crusts dependent on aspect and slope angle. It's hard to imagine any of the surfaces that have developed over the three-week drought behaving well once loaded.