Utah Avalanche Center

This was the weakest snow that I could find. Snowmobile tracks covered many slopes. Wind drifts were glued on and did not crack or move. Other shaded and sheltered slopes at a similar elevation show no signs of instability. Even sidehilling above other tracks did not produce cracks.

pit location had no wind loading, but wind loading was prevalent on all exposed aspects.

Only dug 85cm down.

Heavily wind loaded site. HOWEVER, we looked at many other locations at elevations above this and the facets found in our other pit above the very hard and thick ice/rain crust were not as faceted. The rain/ice crust was thinner and softer. Perhaps these two features correlate with each other. Additionally we could barely get that layer to break in tests.

Dug on due S and N at similar elevations. Found similar structure and similar results. May be thin layer of facets just above crust at 71-70 cm. This pit dug adjacent to a loaded slope that was triggered on 12/27. Bed surf appeared to be thick crust at 63 cm. Soft fx'd layer (63-70 cm) formed when it rained, some snow fell, then temperatures got very cold. This wx event was applied to all aspects at similar elevations. We did many ECT's and got the same results. It was a very stubborn layer despite being so faceted. I was surprised.

winds picked up after noon