This crack left a stain.

Today we went into the southern Whitefish Range to check out a glide avalanche and see how fast the surface crust broke down. 

• The surfaces were frozen solid early this morning with roughly a 5-inch melt-freeze crust. This crust did not exist in more vegetated areas. 
• Steep easterly aspects were already losing supportability at around 1030 am, while southwest aspects were still holding firm at around 1 pm.  
• The glide avalanche we looked at was relatively small, but the debris packed a punch. The avalanche was able to snap small trees and stripped others of their branches. 
• We were able to sneak into the crown and observed very wet grains just above the ground. I was able to slide my hand into the snowpack at the ground with almost no resistance. 
• There was no evidence of the 1/13 crust in the crown and the snowpack was moist to wet throughout.