We rode in southeast Idaho. The snow still rode great but this cold weather and wind is beginning to take its toll.

We dug a pit on a 30 degree ENE facing slope at around 8400 feet. There was 65 inches of snow on the ground in this location. The faceted layer causing so many problems this past week is still identifiable down about 32 inches from the snow surface. However we could not get any failures during extended column tests even after the 30th very hard hit on the shovel (see the first picture).

The snow feels like it is faceting with the cold weather. Although a closeup of the snow crystals from the top few inches of snow did not show much in the way of facets (see picture 2). The third picture is from the suspect layer where the facets are rounding and forming bonds making the suspect layer stronger.

The winds had done a number on the snow in many areas. The fourth picture shows the sastrugi found in many areas. However the East facing slope we rode had very little wind affected zones and rode very nice