Went out to look at how our poor snowpack structure would handle the new snow load. About 12-16" of new low/medium density snow between the car and the top of Silver. It was a nice change of pace for the riding and skinning conditions. While we were traveling we saw few very obvious signs of instability, we got a couple of small cracks, but no widespread collapses. I was able to get a small test slope into the gully to avalanche, just a SS about 10' wide. I dug a pit on an NW aspect at 9300', with a snowpit depth of about 3 feet, we had 17" of fist hard new snow sitting on top of the preserved buried surface hoar. I don't think this SH layer was widespread, but we were in a rather wind-protected zone. The remainder of the snowpack was varying sizes of faceted grains .5mm-1mm mid snowpack, to 3mm at the ground. Even with the buried surface hoar and poor snowpack structure, I was unable to get any results in my extended column test. I think this was due to the lack of wind, and lack of structure in the new snow where we dug. Get anywhere that had a bit more wind, and a bit more of a cohesive slab on top of that weak snow I would expect to get some more results.

Overall glad the riding has improved, but with the weak snowpack and a large load, I am going to continue sticking to low angle terrain.

---