Saw some natural sluffs below very steep terrain.
Observation: Hatcher Pass
Location: Summit Lake
Skinned up the snow machine access trail to the Summit Lake trailhead area. The intention was to skin form there to summit of Hatch. The snow near the road was very promising, with about 15-30cm of fresh powder, and another 30cm+ of solid base where I dug the pit. After ascending about half way up the norther ridge towards the summit of Hatch it became clear the snow pack was incredibly thin in spots, mostly on northeastern facing slopes, at time with only a few inches of light powder over bare ground. It was visibly thin towards the summit. Decided there was diminishing returns and instead skied very short laps on the northwestern slope where I dug the pit, and fresh snow was at least shin deep.
Observer Comments
Weather
About 15-30cm of fresh snow in most places, winds were calm, temp was unknown but felt like mid teens.
Snow surface
Light powder on a hard crust.
Snowpack
The depth of the snow pack was extremely varied across the mountain. The pit was dug in a deeper area on a slope I intended to ski.
1:15PM, 28° slope, northwestern aspect, 73cm deep snowpack.
73-60cm - fist
60-40cm - 4 fingers
40-20cm - 2 fingers
20-5cm - pencil
5cm-ground - large course facets
CT and ECT - no results
During the CT and ECT the top layer of powder just crumbled away quickly and the dense layer of snow from 40cm down did nothing.
IMG-0640
The result at the end of the ECT.