This morning Alta hit 800" for the season. With a base depth of 229" at the Collins Study Plot and had a 6" an hour snowfall rate during one of the overnight hours. It has been an impressive year. A quick test pit showed a weak layer 3' from the surface that was broken stellars and small grained facets. This layer was reactive in extended column tests with propagation at 26 and 28 taps. It is located about 4-6" under the dirt layer in the below photo.

The dirt layer was similar to snowpits that forecasters found in other locations above a melt freeze crust. Drew found it in Parley's Canyon, Mark found it in Farmington Canyon, Greg found it in Big Cottonwood Canyon Bo Torrey found it in Days Fork(without a crust). While this dirt layer isn't everywhere in places where we found it it was associated with a melt-freeze crust that could have facets above or below the crust. These facets could become a player when the warm spring sun starts to beat down on the new snow surface and is worth keeping an eye on.

What stands out to me is that this pit and another pit in the Emma's from Monday both show a dry snowpack on southerly facing terrain. The sunny side has not seen much sun, which means it hasn't settled into it's spring coat yet. Give it some time to adjust. These 2 snowpacks look more like what I would expect to see on more shaded aspects.

Intact dirt layer 32"from the surface with small grained facets above a crust ( no results on this layer with stability tests)

Faceted broken stellars 3' from the surface

Photo of afternoon clearing