The purpose of today's field work was to cover some ground and compare the snowpack from place to place. We found many more areas with faceted snow than I care to see. I've been fairly optimistic up to this point trying to convince myself that the snowpack isn't all too bad. However, after walking and skiing through loose faceted snow in the majority of the terrain we visited, there is no question that we will need to consider the current snowpack as 'suspect' when we put a good load on top of it. It doesn't look like this storm will do that, at least in the Central Wasatch.

West, north, and east aspects above 8000' all are harboring weak faceted snow to a certain extent. Most of these areas have weak snow on the surface and many are loose and punchy right to the ground. Average depths ranged from 12" to 18". Coming from a guy who likes to ski and snowboard powder in avalanche terrain, at this point I am not pleased with the future prospects. There is enough loose weak snow that we are going to need to watch our @$$ once it starts to get loaded up.

Future danger rating highly depends on new snow amounts and wind. Without much of either, avalanche conditions will remain fairly benign.