We made it out and rode the first sister in Cottonwood Canyon. Early in the day the clouds were low and rime built up on the upper ridgelines. The snow on most aspects wass wet but rode well. The North facing aspects had about 6 inches of new snow with less of a crust on the old snow underneath. South through North East slopes had 3-4 inches of wet snow on top of a firm rain/sun crust. The snow was dense enough to keep you mostly on top of the crust. I am afraid that once the snow refreezes it will not be nearly as much fun to ride tomorrow.

Pit tests show a surprising amount of snow in the upper reaches of Cottonwood Canyon. We dug many hand pits on all aspects and a large pit on a 30 degree, Northeast facing slope at about 8700 feet. There was a total of 42 inches on the ground. The lower 36 inches was consolidated firm snow with a grauple layer down about 24 inches from the snow surface. There was 6 inches wet snow capping the base. Shovel shear tests had energetic releases at the grauple/small faceted layer and compression test failed at 25 (5 from shoulder) on that same layer. Extended Column Tests did not produce any failures even after denting my shovel after hitting it so hard.

The snow surface warmed up significantly by early afternoon and we noticed some large point release slides off the 2nd sister running on an East facing slope (Likely on the rain/sun crust from last week). The slides ran several hundred feet. Also on the way out, Amy cut across a steep slope and released all the new snow in a wide point release slide. The debris piled up deep in the gully below.