to play the card or not in Red Meadow cr...

Today we rode the machines in the Northern Whitefish Range, starting from the North Fork side.  We mostly stayed on the road, except for a few swarays into the mid-elevations to look at some recent avalanche activity.  

• We did see evidence of recent avalanches.  One avalanche was from the over the weekend and a second from late last week.  Both avalanches failed on persistent weak layers.  We were unable to get the crowns due to surrounding/overhead hazards, but we did dig into the snow within a few hundred feet of each one.  We found a thin layer of buried surface hoar down approx. 50 cm and below that another 10 cm was the Dec 22 crust with small facets above it.  Neither of our pits produced results on these layers, however, the recipe is certainly there.  Both of these avalanches occurred on E/SE slopes between 5500' and 6200'.
• There was plenty of evidence of wind from Sunday's cranker as well as wind today on the ridge tops.  The wind slabs that we found below 6,000' were stubborn, but we were able to kick off short test slopes.  These wind slabs in the lower country were approximately 1 foot thick.  
• We dealt with the Jan 1 egg shell crust in the valley floor.  Once we rode to 5500' though it seemed to disappear.  
•  The weather was classic Whitefish Range overcast with an occasional glimpse of the blue sky.  Temps at the trailhead hovered near freezing.