Magnum

We traveled up Magnum and found 1 to 2 inches of new moist snow from the parking area up to our high point of 2600 ft. The new snow sat on a mostly breakable crust and soft punchy snow, which made for difficult skinning off of established tracks. At 2100 ft, light precipitation fell as a mix of rain and snow making the upper few inches of the snowpack increasingly saturated.

Visibility obscured most of the upper elevation terrain, but brief sucker holes revealed the small, recent human triggered avalanche on the north side of Magnum that was reported yesterday. We did not observe any new signs of instability. However, in a snowpit on a northerly aspect at 2100 ft, we identified the early March facet layer about 1 ft deep, likely the same weak layer involved in the recent avalanche on Magnum. The upper few inches of the snowpack were moist at all elevations we traveled, while the buried weak layer remained intact in our mid elevation pits and likely still at upper elevations. Our stability tests at this location showed the layer to be stubborn, with no unstable results, though recent avalanche activity indicates it remains capable of producing avalanches.

Due to limited visibility, we turned around at 2600 ft. We did not observe any wet avalanche activity, but given the warm temperatures and wet snow we suspect wet loose activity would have been present on steep slopes if visibility had allowed for better observation. 

We observed a recent skier triggered avalanche on Magnum from yesterday, but saw no new activity today or other signs of instability.