Checkout before the storm in Lost Johnny

We rolled into the Swan Range today with a few objectives.  First- to document the distribution of the surface hoar and second to see if the buried surface hoar is present.

• We DID find well developed surface hoar, but only on the NE-N aspects.  The southerly exposures did not have any.
• We DID NOT find the buried surface hoar layer.  We dug several pits, up to 6500' and found only the usual suspects of Jan1 and Dec 22 crust.  Both of these crusts were decomposing and faceting above them, no results in ECT's.
• No whoomphing or collapsing. 
• We did see evidence of an avalanche from the past week that appeared to be a foot deep wind slab that failed and stepped down to one of the crusts.  Take home message for us was that it was obviously still a potential problem given the right slope and conditions.( This avalanche failed on a E, wind loaded slope, directly below the ridge line at 7200')
• Skiing was great, older powder with a thin skin of crust if the slope had any solar exposure.