22-23

Cooke snow depth is estimated.

An ice climber across the valley observed a large natural avalanche running over Silken Falls ice climb on the east side of the Main Fork. Wind was blowing and moving snow all day. This gully gets wind-loaded and was the site of a fatal avalanche in 2009.

My partner and I were out in a zone south of the bacon rind trailhead today and found some good snow. All of the laps we took today we N NE facing slopes and the snow was supportable and generally stable. We were riding on elevations from 7950 to 7200 all day, and only dug one pit but things were encouraging. I did not do a full profile but we did the usual tests. The total snow height was around 110cm and we got a CT14 Q3 and ECTN12 Q1 both breaking in the now snow around 95cm. Without doing crystal ID and differentiating layers I only got a general hardness scale, from top to bottom it was F-4F-1F+-1F-1F+-4F-G with the section near the ground seeming to be weakening. Overall the snowpack was encouraging but we still kept our riding to lower angle slopes focusing on some pillow lines. No surface hoar was found throughout the day and by the time we left the snow started to fly and the wind stayed light blowing to the northern end of the compass. No recent avy activity was seen on the surrounding slopes. Good snow and good vibes. Thank you all for your hard work, the community appreciates and values what you all do every day!

Had some cracking, collapsing of wind drifts up high on the ridge today and few Dry Loose slides running into Wolverine.

Winds were swirling, and coming from the south when I was skiing, but obviously the storm pattern is moving from the north.

Super wind scoured slopes from yesterday not bonding well in other places.

We found bottomless facets on the ski up through the low elevation trees. Once we got close to the ridge we dug a 130 cm pit that was completely unsupportable. It was just layers of facets on facets, ECTX. We then skinned to the top and dug another pit HS100cm, CTX, ECTN25 about 1.5 feet down. There was a supportable slab here and stability was still good. Once this area gets wind and snow I think the danger will bump up quickly. There is so much weak snow around I have a hard time believing it can support much additional weight.