Professional Observation - Hay Cr., Whitefish Range

We took the snowmobiles out today for a ride in the Hay Cr drainage.  A mix of weather prevailed with snow, wind, sunny skies and varied snow.

• The lower elevations (below 5500') had the slight sun crust from the weekend.  Above that the crust was thin and only showing up on aspects with direct exposure to the sun.  Ducking into a shadow from a tree was even enough to protect the snow on those sunny slopes.  
• We dug a pit at 7100' on a North aspect.  This was a heavily windloaded slope.  The Feb 8th crust was 125 cm down and we had no results in our tests.  We did find the layer of facets above this crust.
• There were several small wind slabs(less than 6 inches deep) that had pulled out probably on saturday due to the warming and tree bombing.  
• The wind was modest (gusting in the teens) from the NE.
• We observed no other avalanche activity.