Today we traveled in the Swan Range to hunt down natural activity from the storm. We also wanted to see if we could locate any preserved surface hoar or near surface facets buried near the rain crust that occurred on December 31. In the area we rode, we found one small storm slab, a thin layer of facets near the December 31 crust, and no surface hoar. We also found a deep snowpack (relative to other areas in our region) with 12 to 16 inches of inverted new snow.
- Snowpit at 6300' NW aspect ECTPV (propagated during isolation).
- Other hand pits sheared during isolation.
- No cracking, collapsing, and test slopes did not produce avalanches with both ski and snowmobile.
- Snowpack is getting deeper! Like 6 feet deep.
Our terrain choices became narrowed as we entered into a thick cloud with low visibility. Given this, we did not feel comfortable being out of sight from one another with the mixed messages the snowpack was sending us. Low and behold the sun hit the peaks when we got back to the truck. We should have gone out to breakfast beforehand.
