Old and New

We spent a beautiful sunny day in the southern end of the forecast area to test old weak layers and track new ones.

• We didn't see any recent slab avalanches, only some small wet loose of indeterminate age.
• We started to notice small (2mm) surface hoar around 5000 feet. It got larger (5mm) above about 6500 feet. It was breaking down in sunny and windy areas.
• We found between 2 and 8 inches of near surface facets and low density stellars above the mid January crust.
• The crust was hard and supportable to our high point at 7200 feet.
• We found a thin layer of softer facets just under the crust.
• We found a shallow, wind scoured area at 7200 feet and dug to test the early December weak layer. We were pleased that we got no propagation in our large column tests, indicating that those facets are less reactive.