Better than expected.

Winter arrived! We were pleasantly surprised by the snowpack depth and the riding quality. Overall, we found the new snow to be mostly cohesionless except for isolated pockets of wind drifted snow near ridgelines. 

• 6 to 8 inches of low-density snow rests on a hard, thick slab that is supportable to ski and machine. Total snowpack height was 52 inches on a northeast aspect at roughly 7000 feet. 
• We were able to trigger small wind slabs below ridgelines where winds drifted new snow into soft slabs that were no more than 8 inches thick. These were easy to manage and harmless in size. 
• We found two distinct weak layers in the snowpack. One was 2 feet above the ground, and the other was just above the ground. Due to the thickness and supportability of the slab above them, we agreed that it would be unlikely for a person to trigger one of these weak layers at the moment. See the snowpack tab for more details.

We felt comfortable riding in steep terrain sheltered from the wind. We discussed that we would be giving wind-loaded terrain features a much wider margin in the Flathead Range or the Swan Range, where nearly twice as much snow fell.