Completely calm all day. Around 10-15 degrees F all day and steadily increasing clouds from the south.
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Eddie’s
Up the standard track to top of the ridge at Eddie’s, stopping below the head wall. We did two runs; one down the skier’s right of the main ridge and another down the skier’s left. The new snow from last week’s big dump has settled and been blown around but still nice skiing in spots. The lower alder section was remarkably thin with lots of alders still poking through. The open area just below the hemlock band was denser snow and wind affected in spots and the main ridge above the hemlocks was blown to a hard crust near the top (see photos). We dug a pit up high. No collapsing or shooting cracks during the day and on a few steeper tests slopes.
Weather
Snow surface
Variable snow conditions across elevations and ridge vs off the ridge.
Snowpack
Dug one pit at 2400. Similar to forecaster observations posted yesterday on Magnum, there was 8-10” of new snow from the storm a few days ago, a stout ice/facet layer below that and then a slab below that ran from 1F to pencil/knife hardness to the ground. We didn’t notice any facet layer on the ground.
Pit results were: STM failing 8-10” down on the hard facet layer and ECTN26 also on the same facet layer.
Wind effected snow along the ridge near the top of Eddie’s
Snow pit photo.