Enter the rabbit hole.

Let's zoom out first. Our snowpit was 200cm deep!! Not only that, but from top to bottom it was showing signs of strength. Woohoo!

Let's zoom in. Sheesh, I could write 1000 words on this. One thing that impressed me was the lack of hardness difference from layer to layer throughout the snowpack, this is a good thing if you like a strong pack. Even the least cohesive facets at the ground are starting to round out and stick to their friends! The snowpack is littered with subtle crusts and layers of snow going from rounds to facets and facets to rounds. We had to really look hard at the snow crystals to decipher what the grain types were in some of these layers. Layers like this could become layers of concern if the TG in that zone continues to promote facet growth. We will have to see what happens as time goes on. One place this is happening enough to mention is beneath the 'styrofoam' snow event. That snow was/is so cohesive that it is crust-like on the bottom and therefore a good habitat for the percolating water to stop and affect those crystals - faceting. How the facet/round crust sandwiches in the upper part of the snowpack trend will really affect how long our PWL problem will continue.

We expected our snowpit location would have some of the deepest snow observed recently in Gold Basin. It was, and this snow depth is certainly more isolated than found on an average N face above or near treeline. Deep snowpack can stabilize the TG and create a stronger snowpack. Additionally it is way harder to trigger an avalanche when the weak layer is so far down. Most other areas will hold less snow, may have a weaker pack, and be easier to trigger. So the PWL and avalanche problem remains complicated and tricky.