Canyon Creek snowpack

Toured in the southern Whitefish Range to assess the Persistent Slab problem and look at the generalized snow structure.

• On northerly slopes at 6400' there was approximately 28" of right side up storm snow, from this past week, resting on a 1 cm pencil hard freezing rain crust formed 12/17/17.
• The 6-8'" of well documented weak snow below the rain crust was indeed weak (4F-) and showing minimal signs of strengthening. 
• Below the weak snow was the Thanksgiving rain crust that is decomposing. Originally 6-10" thick and pencil to knife hard, it has metamorphosed into a weak layer (4F) with only the top 1-2" remaining as a crust (1F). 
• Compression tests resulted in moderate failure below the top layer of the Thanksgiving crust. CT 12, 14, 14
• No propagation was observed at this site with the Extended Column Test. It appears that this weeks new snow has not yet become enough of a slab for propagation to occur.