Strong snowpack in Southern Flathead Range

Today's objective was to climb to high, north facing terrain to assess the October facet layer that we observed during an earlier visit to the Flathead Range.  We found a strong snowpack and no persistent slab concerns.

• The rain events from late October and early November saturated the October facets and are refreezing into thick, solid crusts.  We observed a strong structure on various aspects up to 7,400'
• No recent avalanche activity and no signs of instability today except for some very isolated, shallow cracking just below ridgetop.  
• The snow structure up to 5,200' is 4-6" of low-density snow on ground.  At mid elevations, the recent snow (up to 10") is on an older rain crust.  At higher elevations, snow depths ranged from 24" - 40",  comprised of older rain crusts near the ground and storm snow up to the surface (see profile)