Light snow in the morning and then moderate to heavy snow in the afternoon. Winds were light up to treeline and then started to increase once we got onto exposed terrain. Temperatures were in the mid 30s F at the parking lot and probably low 30s F around our high point at treeline, but it was snowing all the way down to sea level when we drove back around 3 pm.
Observation: Turnagain
Location: Tincan
Toured up to treeline before we ran into a whiteout. Winds started to pick up coming out of the east at treeline. We dug a pit on a SW aspect and one on a N aspect and had no significant results in our stability tests. From what we saw the new snow from earlier this week seemed to be sticking to the old snow surface, but we were limited to treeline elevations due to the visibility.
Weather
Snow surface
About 8-10" of soft new snow on northern aspects, with a sun crust on other aspects and about 4-6" of soft snow underneath.
Snowpack
We dug a pit on a SW aspect at about 2200' and a N aspect at about 2100'. The south aspect had several thick melt freeze crusts in the upper 2' of the snowpack, which were adding a lot of strength to the upper snowpack. The north aspect had about 8-10" of soft snow from this week sitting on top of a dry old snow surface that gradually got firmer with depth. The new snow failed on 14 taps in our extended column test but did not propagate across the column. Overall the new snow seemed to be bonding with the old snow surface in the two locations we dug, but we were limited to looking treeline elevations and below due to the visibility.
The 'are you beeping sign' can only handle another 2' of snow before it starts getting buried!
Dark clouds and snow throughout the day.
Some brave souls testing out the alpine.
Snowpack structure on N aspect at treeline on Tincan.