Was able to look at snow in some drainages I haven't seen yet this season and the snowpack looks pretty good. HS ranges from 75 - 125 cms (2.5' - 4'). Lots of quick hand pits and pole penetrations and I was actually finding a more stable snowpack than I have been seeing in other areas outside of the upper Cottonwoods. Actually took some work to find the late November rain crusts and they were not all that prevalent. For the most part, on northerly aspects I was finding the snow from the past 10 days forming a cohesive slab with fist-hardness near the surface, going to mostly 4F down about 75-100 cms from the snow surface. There was about 5-10 cms of melt-freeze crusts down near the ground. The weakest snow I was finding was mostly above 9000' with 5-10 mm surface hoar crystals as well as some near-surface facets. Of particular interest was a layer of facets from radiation recrystallization on south aspects above 9500'. These were very fine-grained (about .5 mm) sitting atop a very thin crust buried about 1 cm below the snow surface. Overall would call the hazard mostly Low where we were traveling.

Forecaster Comments: Excellent report from Neff's Greg. One thing I failed to mention this morning was the thought that perhaps some of the new wind drifts would bond poorly to the recent surface hoar and surface facets, particularly on south and west facing terrain.

Hardesty