Weak Snow at the Throne

The road into the Throne was marginally snow-covered. It was good enough to get in on sleds without them overheating, but it may not make it long with above-freezing temperatures. We toured up the shoulder to the north-facing run off the top, digging four pits along the way. We experienced no collapsing or obvious signs of instability deeper than superficial cracking. We found 10-24" of snow on the ground. In many of the thinner areas, the entire snowpack consisted of facets.

We focused on finding areas with a cohesive slab over the facets as our primary concern. We had unstable results in the pit in which we found this recipe (ECTP12), but feeling that there was a lack of connectivity in the slab, we proceeded. In our other pits, we had ECTNs and ECTXs because the entire snowpack consisted of facets.