Spring is the best winter

Fieldwork primarily aiming to assess any hazards in the recent snow at mid elevations. 

• New snow totals varied with distance from the Flathead Crest and elevation. Trace at E end of JFS, 2" at Java, 1" in Essex, 4-5" at ~6000 feet. No signs of wind drifting.
• On short, steep test slopes between 5800 and 7000 feet, we saw no cracking and felt no collapses. Hand pits showed 15-25 cm recent snow above harder old snow - sometimes a crust, sometimes dense rounds. Of the recent snow, 10-15 cm fell above 5500 feet in the last 24 hours or so.
• We did not find the near-surface facets reported 3/22 from the Whitefish Range. The Fist-hard fresh snow sat on slightly harder snow, with no sign of loose, cohesionless facets. An ECT produced no failures (propagating or non-propagating) in the upper ~100 cm of the snowpack.
• On our descent, triggered loose snow avalanches were the primary hazard. These did not run particularly far or fast, nor did they gouge much below the most recent snow. We saw similar natural loose snow avalanches on steeper east-southeast.
• Broken skies kept the sun from heating the cold fresh snow on shaded slopes. Below about 5500 feet we started to encounter cream cheese on sun-exposed slopes, and below 5200 feet we were able to trigger small wet loos snow avalanches that did not run far. 
• The snow below 4500 feet was very sticky, making for a very slow return to our truck.