Galena Peak

This was an off duty sunset ski to look at amount of recent melt, to see how the snowpack was draining and refreezing, and to check in on surfaces in advance of tomorrow's minor storm. 

I did not experience any direct signs of instability aside from the old avalanche debris in both the SW and NW bowls of Galena Peak.

Snow surfaces leading up to Saturday's storm are a real alpine mish-mash. Most surfaces are rough and icy, with lots of surface texture from days of melting and wind. Even many steep, direct solars have quite a bit of surface roughness. The most concerning surfaces I encountered were on shaded slopes in the alpine, where very stiff wind-packed snow has been polished by the wind and has faceted under the influence of strong gradients. 

The snowpack did some more melting today, but with good drainage channels established and much less direct solar radiation than in recent days it seems to be handling it well. The snow was unsupportable in a few locations at middle elevations (particularly near large objects like trees), but was held up my weight and was easy to travel over for the most part. On my exit I skied through a lot of solar terrain at middle elevations that was supportable and predictable. 

The surface produced from this 10-day stretch of high-pressure will be an obvious interface in snowpits once buried as we move forward into a snowier period.