Route today was up Bowman Fork and exiting Alexander Basin via Toot to Boot. I haven't been in to this part of Millcreek since very early season and the strength of the snowpack somewhat surprised me. HS 1.5 - 2 m > 9000' with early and mid January faceted layers identifiable in the top 50-75 cms of snow. Lower elevations near the entrance to Alexander Basin also showing almost a meter of snow. In addition to enjoying the superb skiing and traveling conditions, I was especially interested to see the depth of the snowpack in this area as well as if there was any recent wind affected snow. No detailed pits today, but several quick pits and pole probes were showing the January faceted layers to be gaining strength with mostly 1F slab above the early January facets. This area did very well in the January 10-12 storm, and initially the heavy snow overloaded the early January facets (i.e. slides in Depth Hoar Bowl as well as West Porter) but since then it seems the facets have strengthened and are capped with a stout slab on top.

The top several cms of snow is very light density, but ski cuts on steeper aspects could not produce any sluffing. Overall I would call the hazard Low where we were traveling, but the persistent weak layers in the top 50-75 cms of the snowpack still demand our attention. I am only willing to ski steeper northerly aspects that (a) have deeper snowpacks (~1.5 meters) and (b) do not have any recent wind loading.