Today travel was from the Bowman trail head in Millcreek Canyon, descending Toots To Boots into Alexander Basin, up into Wilson Glade and exiting out Bonus Bowl. The snow in the top of Toots looked pretty wind jacked, but upon inspection discovered it was soft and recystalized with about 6" ski penetration, pretty consistent all the way down. Surface was not as loose as expected, couldn't buy a sluff even in the steepest part of the slope. From what I have been seeing lately the surface snow was not as faceted as I would expect , more dense and creamy than loose and faceted. Pic texture of the snow in Toots.

Being a little surprised at the at the not so weak surface snow in Toots, decided to dig a pit on the way to Wilson. NW facing fairly protected, just under 9000ft, around 26 to 28 degrees in steepness. What I found there was also a bit of a suprise, the new snow that clobbered Millcreek last weekend has settled into a 8 to 10" 4 finger slab sitting on top of the old loose facets from the New Years high pressure, the 3" of buried facets are small grained and still very loose in Millcreek. Was going to perform a compression test, cut out both sides of the column and did not make it quite half way through the back when the slab popped out with a clean shear on the early January facets, Q1 sheer while trying to isolate the column. Not a problem right now, not enough weight or depth in the new slab, but could become a player with more weight. The slab has the ability to hold more weight and in turn cause larger collapse failure avalanches once a new load is added, makes things a bit more complex. Pics, pit with the weak layer swept out to show its depth and the slab on top, clear pick of the point of the clean shear plain on top of the old facets and below the slab, total snow pack 30".

Forecaster comments - agree with Mark re change over the past few days. Still, have found quite loose recrystallized snow in both Broads and Mill B South. SH also noted down low...though not in the starting zones. Warm temps and wind effect have, I believe, taken the "edge" off what initially looked to be a nasty surface layer with the next storm cycle. This, however best describes the upper elevation terrain...mid and low elevations, as noted, still offer loose, if not variable conditions. - Hardesty

My thinking is that the surface faceting is not as weak as portrayed, with warm temps and settlement during the day and 20 degree temps up high at night, the temperature gradient is not that pronounced and the surface has not faceted to the extreme that I have been reading about, almost seems to have improved in the last few days. Some of my thinking on this comes from skiing Bonus Bowl in Wilson, a very steep shady north facing bowl in mid Wilson with a some what thin snow pack. Thought for sure I could get a facet sluff-alanche in there if any where, same deal couldn't buy even a small sluff in the steepest terrain. Surface Hoar still growing in the drainage bottoms, but not on the main slopes, probably won't be much of a factor when we get a new load but makes for some cool pics.