The Facet Factory

Went on a tour up to Evangeline Lake for a couple of nights. On the way up and over Howe Ridge we found minimal snow. There was large hoar frost up to 2 cm, below treeline on all aspects except steep south and west facing. Going up the valley the snow started to build up. There was 4” to 12” of facets sitting on a top of a robust crust. South and west facing aspects had a thinner, more spring like snowpack. The west side of Heaven’s peak had numerous small (D1-1.5) point release slides from the past couple of days. Dug a pit at camp at Lake Evangeline (5200’) that was 91cm deep with 46 cm of facets sitting on top of a melt freeze crust that was 17cm thick with more facets at the bottom. We got an ECTX but recorded a steep temperature gradient in the faceting layers. Noticed a small crown from a wind slab just below Paul Bunyan's Cabin on the East side and wind loading on the NE face of Longfellow. Toured around the next day just south of Lake Evangeline on East aspects. We found a similar snowpack until the treeline. Above the treeline (6600’) we found wind slabs sitting on top of three crusts and a snow depth of 160cm. We stayed on low angle slopes above the treeline but mostly skied below the treeline. The cloud line on the first day was around 4000’, just above Trout Lake. The sky stayed clear until the morning of the last day, 12/7/20 with 2/8 cover in the morning. The wind was calm except for moderate winds above the treeline and during the last night the winds picked up from calm to moderate in the valley bottom.