Quick report
- Red Flags Comment
- <p>No cracking, collapsing or heavy loading. Did see what appeared to be old buried debris under many easterly slide paths off Box Elder, and a crown line off a north facing ridge there. </p>
We dug two pits on NNW aspects, one at 9,000' and one at 8,000'. The profiles have a similar appearance: In both cases we saw facets at the ground, the mid-February dust layer only 20-25cm up, a melt freeze crust roughly 30 cm' above that, a poss. faceted graupel layer right above the crust and then right-side-up snow to the surface. However, the higher elevation pit revealed dry snow and the lower elevation pit was damp throughout most of the layers.
At the 8,000' site we poured water on the surface and found it traveled on a layer change between storm rounds as well as on and in the melt freeze crust.
Extended column test results (or lack thereof) did not highlight a weak layer that could propagate a fracture.
Snowpack
Soft powder remained on northerlies, but solar aspects from east through south through west were crusted by the end of the day. Northerlies damp up to 8500'. Winds calm on our tour, but some previous wind effect could be seen and felt.