Sunshine

We rode into the northern Whitefish Range today to fill a void in recent observations. We rode up into the Mt. Marston area searching for weak layers on all aspects.

• We found weak layers of surface hoar and faceted crusts beneath 4 to 10 inches of recent snow. 
• Southerly aspects held a facet-crust-facet-crust combo that was not inspiring. The main thing lacking in this area is a slab on top. This is more of an issue in other areas that received more snow. 
• We observed no signs of instability. No shooting cracks or collapses. 
• We had no results ski cutting wind-loaded terrain features. 
• The sun was warm and produced rollerballs on steep solar aspects. None of these entrained snow. A zipper crust was already forming at upper elevations by 2 pm. 

Our plan today had options of low-angle and steep riding depending on conditions. I was prepared to have a more conservative day given recent activity throughout the forecast area on buried weak layers. Our mindset shifted as soon as we found how much less snow fell in this area. Because of this, we felt comfortable skiing steep terrain with clean runouts one at a time. We avoided terrain with convex rolls and chose concave slopes with cleaner runouts. 

video later.