Decided to check out the snowpack in the Swan and skinned up to Spider Bowl. We dug a west facing pit at 6,500 feet. Total snow depth 190 cm. Rain crust was 100 cm deep, 1 cm thick, and pencil hard. This layer was substantially harder and thicker than observed yesterday in the Southern Whitefish Range. The last storm left a right-side-up snow pack that was well bonded to the crust. The faceted layer below the rain crust was surprisingly strong and bonded (again compared to our pit yesterday on Skook Ridge). We did not observe any propagation on our extended column test nor any failure in an isolated column test. We enjoyed amazing skiing above 5,000 feet. Below that, alders and pine boughs were prevalent and made skinning downright difficult and skiing treacherous. The creek along along the skin track was not frozen over. We will let another couple feet of snow fall down low before we go back to Spider Bowl.
