The snow profile is from a NNW aspect at 10,980' in Talking Mountain Cirque. The pack is very stout, and I found my snow saw to be a more effective digging tool than my shovel. The top 33cm is all facets, down to the 10/20 rain crust. This makes for nice skiing, but this will be our next weak layer of concern as we add more snow. A failure can occur anywhere in these faceted layers, and the very hard rain crust will make an excellent bed surface.
Clustered rounded grains at the bottom of the snowpack, an odd sight for November.
A loose dry avalanche that entrained a good amount of snow. The trigger appears to be an animal. I observed tracks traversing above the slide. The surface snow is weak, but I did not trigger any sluffs or loose dry avalanches while skiing steep slopes.
Overall coverage in Talking Mountain Cirque is good for November. I probed 80 - 100 cm while skinning up the NE-facing slopes above 11,000'.
The exit out of Gold Basin. It is good up high, but you still have to earn it with very thin cover down low.
