The primary goal of my day was to look at the lower end of the north facing mid elevation band as we move into this rapid warm up. Across the board, in most places where a snowpack still exists, it is structured. What varies are the crust interfaces, along with the water content and the facets.
I quickly dug on a north aspect at 8250' and found an average depth of 100 cm. The upper 8 to 10 cm were completely saturated, between wet and very wet, while the lower 5 cm of new snow was closer to wet or moist. Below that sat a stout 25 cm thick crust, above another 15 cm layer of moist rounding grains, with moist rounding facets in the bottom 40 cm of the snowpack. The entire snowpack, other than the stout crust interface, was easy to compact into a snowball, even with the angular nature of the bottom 40 cm.
In an ECT, I was able to get ECTN in the upper 8 cm of the snowpack where the new snow transitioned from fully saturated to just wet.
In this particular area, it would take a lot of free water movement to impact the grains under the 25 cm crust interface.
Ski quality was better than I was mentally prepared for.
Pit profile - N aspect - 8200' - small shrub across most zones I dug, pretty standard for 8200'
ECTN11 - down 8cm in the moisture interface
