Went up to Lane's Leap area in BCC to check out how the new snow was holding up, investigate the new/old snow interface, and to remind myself of the spatially variable snow depths in the region. "Dug" a pit on the south face of the ridge at 9,445' (pic 1) and found the height of snow to only be 45cm. New snow was sitting atop a 3cm MF crust which overlaid 15cm of F-hard facets (3mm grains). Threw a snowball over the ridge to the North side and dug a pit where it landed, finding the height of snow to be 125cm (pic 2). Underneath the new snow on the north side of the ridge, I found evidence of buried surface hoar that appeared to have since been compressed (pic 3, hard to see but worth a shot). ECT results showed no propagation, but resulted in cracking within the new snow and at the new/old snow interface.

Main takeaway for the afternoon was that snow depths are extremely variable, and a sleepy dragon lurks underneath the snow surface. While this PWL is beginning to get buried deeper on some slopes compared to others, it's not hard to find within the top meter of the snowpack. Within a literal snowball's throw away, I found the snowpack to have decreased by 64% reminding me of a near-tragic accident this year in MT. Diligently pole-probe to assess snow depths and PWL location as to not wake this dragon, or better yet stick to slopes under 30 degrees.