Professional Observation - Woodward Creek/Hellroaring Creek, Mission Mtns.

The lower elevation snow was really warming up,. There were lots of pinwheels ,and the remaining snow left in the trees was falling out.  Pretty much all of the area had recently been affected by the wind. Even down low there was quite a bit of scouring and even some drifting on the road. The riding at the ridgetop elevation (roughly 6000 ft.) was good with enough density to hold the sleds up, but still soft enough to make for good riding. 

Once in the upper elevation terrain we noticed the large faces were starting to have rollerball activity and tree bombs were starting to fall on the slopes.  The temperature when we stopped around lunchtime was +4 C (41F).  We opted to stay away from the large slopes and terrain traps due to increased temperatures. 

Our pits were both dug at roughly 7000 ft. on East and North aspects.  Both slopes had been previously wind-loaded.  The east aspect resulted in a few failures (hard force) in Compression tests, but no propogations in Extended Column Tests (ECTs). The weak layer appeared to be a layer of facets mixed with groupel 60 cm down. In our north aspect pit we were able to identify two layers of buried surface hoar, 10 cm down and 45 cm down.  Again no propogation within our ECTs. However, we were able to get Compression Test (CT) results with moderate force.  Bottom line for us was there was buired surface hoar still lingering on the protected slopes.

On the ride out we noticed that the temperature had warmed up enough to bring many more pinwheels down on the road since our ride up in the morning.