Few comments from weekend tours in Millcreek Canyon (Main Porter Fk & Little Water Peak):

• Am generally finding ~75 cm snowpack between 8000' - 9500'
• Snowpack remains supportable, but the last 2 days I have been getting a lot more sandboxing where you crash through the weak snow down to the ground. Clearly a sign our snowpack continues to rot.
• I am generally finding the rime crust to be less evident in Millcreek Canyon, and where it is present, it is thin.
• Snow surface is quite weak with widespread surface hoar and near-surface facets. It has been interesting to observe the dense graupel-filled layer from 12/21 - 12/23 facet.
• I have not had any collapsing since 12/23, yet today got a huge collapse in an undisturbed meadow in Little Water Gulch that I wandered into to check out the surface hoar. The collapse shook some snow off of an aspen, and made the craziest hissing sound as the collapse disturbed the 10-30mm surface hoar.
• Very widespread variability of the snowpack - on the same slope you can find a 4F snowpack in one area, yet 50 meters higher find a 1F-hard wind slab on top of the facets. Am finding this spatial variability to make it almost impossible to assess a large, steep slope.
• Super difficult to assign a hazard rating - am thinking the probability of triggering a slide is decreasing as the snowpack continues to adjust, yet collapsing is a reminder of the instability of the snowpack in some areas. Hazard is probably closer to Moderate than Considerable on upper elevation northerly aspects, but given the spatial variability, am unwilling to push angles > 35 degrees in these areas.

Am finding the UAC iOS app to be helpful when evaluating a slope.