This week we have traveled through a variety of terrain: elevations, aspects, and locations throughout the Central Wasatch. In our pits we have been predominantly looking for (and finding) the November Facet Layer. Results have been mixed, but the structure exists.

Today, we dug a test pit on an upper elevation (9900) NW facing slope on a subridge just off the Antennas near No Name Bowl on the Park City ridgeline. We expected to find the NFL layer here but as we dug our snowpit (HS 150cm), we were surprised to find at 70cm down, at the new snow/ old snow interface, a clearly defined 1 cm gray line.

Our CT failed on isolation: CTV. And two ECTs we performed failed at ECTP19 and ECTP21, all down 70cm at our layer of concern. Upon inspection, this layer was up to 6mm buried surface hoar and facets. The new snow slab sitting directly on top of the surface hoar was pencil hard.

In the last two weeks I have seen surface hoar in many popular areas. This pit shows that some of these forms did not get blown down or crushed. While this might be a fairly isloated issue, it is something I will look out for in the near future. This finding was unexpected to us and that added complexity coupled with the PWL setup and recent weird avalanches will continue to inform my terrain choices. For the time being, I will stick to low angle, low hazard slopes.