We spent some time in the Southern Bear River Range today. The riding conditions were similar to what we have been finding up north. A breakable Zipper crust buried under a few inches of new snow. Considering that we haven't gotten any significant new snow for almost a month, the riding wasn't too bad even on steep terrain.

We did not notice any signs of recent avalanches and did not see any avalanche warning signs today. We dug several pits on north facing slopes around 8600 feet elevation (30-40 degree steepness). The snowpack varied between 42 and 54 inches deep. Although riding around, the snowpack felt far shallower than in the northern part of the range. The snow is consolidated but is becoming faceted from the cold. We could not get any failures during compression tests so we did not even attempt extended column tests. In addition to the faceted snow, there is a nice layer of surface hoar in many places. Should be an interesting setup if we ever get snow again…