While the overall issue I would be avoiding today would be the slabs of wind-drifted snow, the primary concern we encountered was honestly the wet snow. The temperatures were very warm, reaching 58 degrees at the base of Big Cottonwood Canyon, and although they did begin to drop throughout the tour, the wet snow remained problematic, even off only south aspects. West-facing aspects were warming up, leading to widespread roller-balling and pinwheeling. This phenomenon was widespread throughout the trees, necessitating management similar to that of sluff management. While this may not become a significant issue moving into the next storm, it was our main concern today and will result in a wide variety of snow surfaces for the new snow to fall onto, as well as large frozen pinwheels and roller balls hidden under a few inches of snow.

The primary goal today was to examine the mid-elevation east-facing aspects and observe the healing process of the melt-freeze facet crust interface. However, everywhere we dug ended up having more of an ENE or NE aspect, making it difficult to find the melt-freeze crust intact. While we did locate a very well defined interface, overall, it appeared thin and rounding. At 9070', we obtained an Extended Column Test (ECTX) result on an ENE aspect. Despite the limited exploration of eastern aspects at mid-elevations, another day of warm temperatures will likely continue to improve the situation regarding this persistent weak layer interface.