Went on a quick fact finding tour before the storm to see what sort of a surface the new snow in the forecast will be falling on. Completely avoided all avalanche terrain which limited my max elevation to 5200'.
There were two concerning events in this region in form of (1) a very warm and windy 2/22 and (2) a very intense graupel shower in the wee hours of 2/23 depositing about 2cm down here in the valley. It appears that the short-lived warm up only affected the lower elevations forming a fragile crust. The crust was about 6cm thick at 3400' but became much reduced with elevation and completely dissappeared at about 4800'. This was assessed in areas as free of trees as possible and on a NW aspect.
The 2/23 graupel shower generated a layer 2-3 cm thick everywhere from the vallley floor to 5200' accompanied by very strong winds. The layer appears to be a mix of intact and pulverized graupel. Will be keeping an eye on that layer should we get significant snowfall over the next few days.
This morning had increasing snow and wind but still S1 and Moderate by the time I headed back down.
In other news.... Binoccular suveys duriing good visibilty of the west side of the Swan Range from about Mt Aenaes south to Six-mile have revealed no avalanches. Sure looks poised to do something but no crowns observed. There is of course some loose dry coming out of the super steep chutes but haven't seen any fractures.
