Overnight snowfall was light, but there was a dusting down to at least 300m. In the morning as we began our fieldwork, it began to snow and the temperature warmed. On the upper slopes, we found up to 15 cm of recent snow in the drifted areas. On the summit, it was -1°C with winds in the SE 0-15 m/sec range.

The snow was dry in the morning and sensitive in the windloaded areas. Our observations included minor shooting cracks and still-light but increasing new snow and windloading. Our slope and traveling test results included some cracking between and around our skis, one mini-slab on a test slope, lots of skin slippage on the underlying crust, and sensitive slab test results (Slab #2, taking out most of the undermined area quite cleanly). We judged the strength -, the stress +, energy -, and structure -, where + indicates a stronger snowpack, - weaker, and ~ neutral, but the amount of new load was still small enough for there to be only some small thin unstable areas.

By afternoon, instead of building toward greater slab instability, rising temperatures were beginning to slowly wet the snow below 750m so it trended toward small wet point releases and many cinnamon roll snowballs. We judged the strength ~, the stress +, the energy +, and the structure ~.

As we descended it continued to warm, continuing the trend we saw during the day. Snow levels seem to be fluctuating widely in the storms we are getting this week. The icy crust that was suspect today under the recent soft snow will remain weak until it either wets out thoroughly or has some time to bond to the overlying snow. Instability will depend largely on new snow and windloading amounts.

In regional snowpack news, we have a report from Bruce Bauer of Mosquito Lake, 28 miles north of Haines, saying it's pretty thin at his place but that the skiing and snowmachining up on the Haines Pass is now quite good. So it you're looking for some good snow in the area this week, head north!