We spent a cold morning in the mountains today in the Northern Bear River Range. It's amazing how much a difference a week will make. The latest storms have helped to build a nice base that isn't fully trustworthy yet on sleds, but getting closer all the time. The last weeks worth of raging winds has made many slopes and ridges scary. One spot will be a 7' drift while a few feet a way is scoured to the rocks. Riding was very good. The powder was definitely more consolidated than it has been, but the fresh few inches on top made it feel much deeper.

We dug 2 pits today. The first pit (red probe in the pic) was at about 8700' in elevation on a true East facing slope of only 24 degrees. Snow total on the ground in this spot was 57". I was pretty surprised at how well the snow was bonded here. Almost the entire depth of the snowpack was consolidated and didn't readily show weak layers. However, right at the ground level I found several inches of rotted sugary snow. Compression test resulted in failures at 12 taps (12" from the surface) and 29 taps (right at the ground facets. My extended column test resulted in no failures. (ECTX)

Eric dug a pit on a North East facing slope, also at about 8700' in elevation. His total depth was 70" (photo with blue probe). He suspects that the wind must have transported and deposited a little more snow in this area. His compression tests resulted in failures at 19 taps about 20" from the surface and also a failure at the ground on 29 taps. He also was surprised by the consolidated snowpack except near the ground where he found about 12" of faceted crap. His extended column test resulted in a full propagation 20" from the surface. (ECTP21 Q2).

Overall, the snow quality was great, coverage was greatly improved, and stability is improving. I'm still not ready to jump on anything that could slide, but I think that things are definitely getting better.