Observation: Turnagain

Temp around freezing
Overcast to obscure sky with light snow

2" of new dense snow sat over a wet or moist surface from the day prior (Saturday), which was generally not supportable. Hoped to find non-crusty/dry surface conditions on the north aspect from the top of center ridge (2000'), but previous day warming had left a thin layer of moist snow with a slight refreeze on the top.

Given the bad ski conditions I was able to convince my party to dig to the ground!!!! I plan to use this tactic again in the future, but next time intentionally. See below for the pit structure - no tests as we were mainly interested in the bottom half of the snowpack. Location was just northeast of the Snotel site on a north aspect, in a representative location for the elevation. Overall, no big density or hardness changes in the bottom half of the snowpack, including at the ground where moist large grains - well bonded - were present. The only noticeable structure change was in grain size, as noted below. This included a homogenous layer of large rounds 220cm down - 15cm thick - that I suspect are the remnants of the 12/1 facet/crust combo.