Travel from Bowman Fork to Gobbler's exiting Porter Fork.

The high pressure has continued to haunt the are's thin snowpack. Snow at lower elevations is minimal and weak with melt/freeze crusts on solar aspects. Throughout upper elevations the stratigraphy of crusts and various facet layers is variable; in some areas the last 2 M/F crusts were still present and some areas they had fully deteriorated. The facets remain present. Ridgetops along the Gobbler's summit have miniature versions of the typical wind slabs and cornices. It is still possible that skiers could trigger localized wind slab pieces but most areas I saw would not support subsequent slab propagation.

My main concern for the Gobbler's terrain won't materialize until Friday-Sunday (if the storm produces its forecast). The upper slopes (off-ridgetop) hold weak snow throughout . HS 35-75cm was common along the upper NW Face and November/December facets are overlaid by slightly-less-weak snow. This produced many easy ECTN's and a couple slab-facture PST's. Not much hazard currently but the weak layer is continuous, ready and waiting for a slab on NW-E starting zones.

On a positive note the few inches of new snow today improved the skiing conditions. I'll take anything I can get right now.

Please forgive the video's amateur acting/camera work.